Facebook announced that its annual developer conference, F8, will be canceled amid fears surrounding the spread of Coronavirus.
For many, F8 is a special time of the year. As we gather in San Jose, California, to learn about the latest developments and future plans for the Facebook family of platforms. But, not this year, as the event has now been officially canceled.
The announcement was made in a blog post, in which Facebook explained that the physical event will be canceled and that it would plan other ways to announced new products and services. New plans will be shared over the next few weeks but they should include smaller local events, live streams and videos.
“This was 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,” Facebook Director of Platform Partnerships Konstantinos Papamiltiadis said in the blog post. “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.”
Were you planning on going to F8 this year?
[box]Read next: World Health Organization Joins TikTok To Fight Coronavirus Misinformation[/box]