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An animated gif of this scene from the 2015 film "Minions" was part of the April Fools' Day Gmail prank that is embarrassing Google after a massive backlash.
An animated gif of this scene from the 2015 film “Minions” was part of the April Fools’ Day Gmail prank that is embarrassing Google after a massive backlash.
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NEW YORK — Google is acknowledging that it pranked itself after an April Fool’s Day Gmail tweak angered some people who use Google’s email for work.

The company added a button to its e-mail service that allowed users to fire out a minion GIF, a character from the animated film “Despicable Me,” which would drop a microphone and then mute responses to whatever e-mail the user had sent.

The Gmail Help Forum on Thursday was soon populated by angry users who say they unintentionally attached a minion dropping a mic during important business communications.

Google Inc. apologized and turned off the feature, saying that due to a bug, the mic drop “inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs.”

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