Google decides a world-stopping pandemic is no time for pranks

Those on the lookout for Google to spring one of its traditional April Fools pranks can stop hitting refresh.

The search behemoth says it’s taking a year off from the tradition to avoid sowing more confusion in a world where grim and scary uncertainty is already rampant.

“Our highest goal right now is to be helpful to people, so let’s save the jokes for next April, which will undoubtedly be a whole lot brighter than this one,” Google marketing manager Lorraine Twohill wrote in an internal email, according to Business Insider.

Twohill wrote that she feared some in Google’s wide breadth of products may be planning pranks on their own, and urged managers to kill the hoaxes before they could get out.

Google has become legendary for its yearly pranks, like inserting Where’s Waldo into Google Maps, or announcing the release of a bad joke detector for email.

Other corporate outfits have taken to also releasing fake news or products, though many are expected to take the year off as well, according to Slate.