Facebook has announced it is cancelling this year's F8 Developers conference due to growing global concerns over COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.
The annual conference was scheduled for May 5th and 6th in San Jose, California, and last year was attended by over 5,000 developers, creators and entrepreneurs from all over the globe.
Facebook says it may now instead plan alternate ways, like local events, live-streams and more to connect with the developer community.
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Coronavirus threat
"This was a tough call to make," Facebook's director of developer platforms and programs, Konstantinos Papamiltiadis said in a statement. "F8 is an incredibly important event for Facebook and it's one of our favourite 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."
Coronavirus has had a major impact on the tech industry by jeopardizing the entire production and supply chain in China, and has been the main reason behind the cancellation of many marquee tech events this year.
Prior to F8, the high-profile telecom event Mobile World Congress had to be called of due to the outbreak of this deadly new virus.
Recently, several companies have also pulled out of the annual RSA security conference while a lot of companies like Sony and Microsoft have announced that they will not attend the Game Developers Conference, slated to be held next month.
It is yet to be seen if companies like Google and Microsoft decide to go ahead with their annual developers’ conference scheduled in coming months, and there are reports that even the 2020 Olympic games in Tokyo might get called off.
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Via: Engadget
