False Rumor Claims Google Will Shut Down Gmail

The fake news continues to abound on X/Twitter. At the end of the day on February 22, a rumor began to spread on the site: Google was preparing to get rid of Gmail in the coming months. This is obviously false.

One of the biggest companies in the world is reportedly preparing to retire one of the most popular email software programs on the planet. If this sentence seems completely crazy to you, well done, you probably wouldn’t have been fooled by the latest fake news circulating on X/Twitter yesterday.

Google does not retire Gmail

In a 2.0 panic phenomenon of which only the microblogging platform has the secret, many Internet users believed that Google was going to get rid of Gmail in the coming months. A screenshot of an “email” announcing that Google was going to eliminate its messaging solution by August 1, 2024 was indeed widely shared, despite its completely misleading content, leaving some to believe in fake news.

“After years of connecting millions of users around the world, […] the Gmail adventure will end there”, says the bogus screenshot. “From August 1, 2024, Gmail will be officially closed and will no longer be able to receive or send emails», Specifies the message, which advises everyone to download their archives before the fateful date.

Only simplified HTML version disappears

Obviously, none of this is true, but the turns of phrase and general design of the email do indeed resemble what Google might send. And it’s not completely a coincidence. Indeed, this misinformation actually took up an old announcement from Google which announced the end of Gmail in simplified HTML version. Only this “light” version of Gmail will bow out next August, but some funny people thought it was clever to create general panic on Twitter by tampering with the message.

If the announcement seemed too big to be true, it still created enough of an echo for even the official Gmail account on X/Twitter to react. A few hours after the panic began, a laconic tweet clarified that “Gmail is here to stay», ending the joke. However, if the rumor has made you think about your dependence on Google’s solution, know that there are plenty of other alternatives, with some emphasizing encryption and privacy protection.

Source : New York Post