The increase COVID-19 infections – often simply defined coronavirus – above all outside China, but at the same time the psychosis in Italy is falling sharply. We are however in a emergency period and, to avoid unpleasant situations, Facebook has decided to cancel part of its F8 conference, which annually holds with developers from all over the world to reveal the news on its services.
This does not mean that there will be no news. Instead of the events planned by the company for the next 5 and 6 May, Facebook will host "local events" and will release "video and live streaming content". Below is the announcement of the company:
"In light of the growing concerns around COVID-19, this year we made the difficult decision to cancel the part of the F8 conference which included face-to-face meetings in order to prioritize the health and safety of our development partners, our employees and everyone else who helps make the event possible. We plan to replace the conference events held in person with local events, videos and live streaming content. "
Facebook deepened the topic on the official blog through the words of Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Director of Developer Platforms and Programs. The company manager wrote that "priority must be given to health and safety" of all those who are inside or outside the company. He also stated that Facebook has tried to explore several alternative options to allow the conference to move forward, concluding that it would have made no sense to carry it forward without the presence of developers from all over the world.
L'F8 not the first major event to be canceled due to the latest coronavirus epidemic: the renunciation of the Mobile World Congress, canceled in early February due to similar concerns about the virus, was striking. In the meantime, GDC 2020 is seeing several big companies come out because of the same fears, including Unity, Sony, Electronic Arts, Facebook itself, Kojima Productions and the Microsoft Game Stack team.