After MWC, Facebook Cancels F8 Conference Over Coronavirus Fears

The popular developer event takes place in the US where new features of Facebook, WhatsApp are announced.

Facebook F8 conference keynote is hosted by Mark Zuckerberg every year.

(Photo Courtesy: Facebook for Developers)

Social networking giant Facebook has officially cancelled this year’s F8 developer conference in the US, amid coronavirus concern. The event keynote is hosted by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, where we get to hear about upcoming Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram features from the company.

“Given the growing concerns around COVID-19, we’ve made the difficult decision to cancel the in-person component of F8 2020,” as mentioned by Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Facebook's director of developer platforms in this blog post.

Facebook F8 is the latest major technology event to be cancelled this year because of coronavirus concerns, which has affected thousands of people across the globe, putting travel plans to a halt in various countries.

Having said that, Facebook is keen on doing this year’s F8 conference through locally hosted events.

“In place of the in-person F8 event, we’re planning other ways for our community to get together through a combo of locally hosted events, videos and live streamed content. We’ll share additional details on our plans for F8 in the coming weeks. ,” the blog post adds.

Facebook said that it will be donating a significant amount to the organizations serving residents of San Jose in order to compensate for the cancellation of this year’s event.

“This year, we’re doubling the donation amount to $500,000 (Rs 3.59 crore approx) which will be given to the organisations working to diversify the tech industry as well as serving the local San Jose residents.”

<a href="https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2020/02/27/important-f8-2020-update/">Facebook developer blog post</a>

Although United States is one of the least affected countries from the outbreak, the country’s authorities are looking to minimise the impact of the coronavirus, and by cancelling such large-scale events, it is avoiding human contact in a closed space, which includes people travelling from other countries as well.