It is usually the big stage for Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook managers to show product news to the California developer community. But the F8 conference will not take place in 2020. The reason: The commonly known coronavirus, COVID-19, has created great concern to endanger the health and safety of visitors, who usually come together in thousands from all over the world. That’s why the F8 has now been canceled.
“Given the growing concern about COVID-19, we made the difficult decision to drop the personal component of F8 2020,” said Facebook representative Konstantinos Papamiltiadis. They want to offer other ways that the developer community can come together – via videos, live streams and small, local events.
Donate to San Jose
The city of San Jose, where the F8 usually took place, was said to remain loyal. Since the city now has to miss out on some sales (overnight stays, transport, meals, etc.) due to the cancellation of the conference, Facebook donates $ 500,000 to organizations that serve the common good of the residents.
Another big event in the tech industry fell victim to the corona virus. Most recently, the big Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona was canceled, and the Game Developers Conference 2020 lost major exhibitors with Unity, Sony, Electronic Arts, Facebook, Kojima Productions and Microsoft’s Game Stack, who withdrew.
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