The Novel Coronavirus outbreak has put the world to a standstill. Conferences have been cancelled, and some companies have closed shops waiting for the plague which has killed more than 2,800 people and infected about 83,000 worldwide to be contained.
After the MWC 2020 annual event was cancelled, Facebook has also withdrawn its annual F8 Developer Conference.
Announcing the news in a blog post yesterday, Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, the Director of Platform Partnerships at Facebook, said, “given the growing concerns around COVID-19, we’ve made the difficult decision to cancel the in-person component of F8 2020.
It was a tough call to make, but the company chose to prioritize the health and safety of all their partners, employees, and every other person who takes part in making things happen at every annual F8 Developer Conference.
Typically, the company leverages the conference to update on what they are working on to make its products better. They have also utilized the platforms to announce new ventures like the dating service, for example, which was teased in 2018 and the augmented-reality glasses.
To counter the cancellation, the company will now opt to host the event “through a combo of locally hosted events, videos, and live-streamed content.” Details are not clearly outlined, but they will tip on the same in the coming weeks.
