Tech giant Facebook has canceled its annual F8 developer conference scheduled to take place in May due to coronavirus concerns.
The Verge reports that tech giant Facebook has canceled the in-person portion of its annual F8 developer’s conference due to coronavirus concerns. The event was scheduled to take place on May 5 and 6 this year, instead, the main F8 conference will be replaced with “locally hosted events, videos and live-streamed content.”
Facebook’s full statement reads:
In light of the growing concerns around COVID-19, we’ve made the difficult decision to cancel the in-person component of F8 this year, in order to prioritize the health and safety of our developer partners, employees and everyone who helps put F8 on. We plan to replace the in-person F8 event with locally hosted events, videos and live-streamed content.
Facebook’s director of developer platforms and programs Konstantinos Papamiltiadis said in a blog post that “we need to prioritize the health and safety of our developer partners, employees and everyone who helps put F8 on.” Papamiltiadis further notes that Facebook explored other options to continue the in-person portion of the conference but concluded that it was “important to us to host an inclusive event and it didn’t feel right to have F8 without our international developers in attendance.”
Other international events have been affected by coronavirus concerns such as the Mobile World Congress which was canceled earlier in February due to concerns about the virus. The Games Developer Conference 2020 has had multiple major developers and companies pull out including Unity, Sony, Electronic Arts, Facebook, Kojima Productions, and Microsoft’s Game Stack team, although the conference itself is still planned to take place next month.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
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