Facebook Cancels F8 Developers Conference Amid Coronavirus Fears

Jill Goldsmith
·2 min read

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Facebook is the latest big company to cancel a major international event, scrapping the highly-anticipated annual F8 developers conference on May 5-6 in San Jose.

“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,” the company in a regretful blog to the global developer community.

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“Every year, we look forward to connecting with our global developer community at F8 and sharing our vision for the future that we’re building together. But given the growing concerns around COVID-19, we’ve made the difficult” decision, it said – “a tough call to make.”

“F8 is an incredibly important event for Facebook and it’s one of our favorite ways to celebrate all of you from around the world — but we need to prioritize the health and safety of our developer partners, employees and everyone who helps put F8 on. We explored other ways to keep the in-person part of F8, but it’s important to us to host an inclusive event and it didn’t feel right to have F8 without our international developers in attendance.”

Facebook said it would hold a mix of locally hosted events, videos and live streamed content and will share additional details in the coming weeks.

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