Facebook cancels all events for 50 attendees or more until June 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic and employees will work from home through the summer
- Facebook is cancelling major in-person events due to coronavirus
- The company says they will go online-only through July 2021
- It will also allow employees to work from home until the end of summer
- The decision mirrors those made by other major tech companies like Microsoft
- Learn more about how to help people impacted by COVID
Facebook will join several other tech companies in cancelling major events until next year due to an ongoing pandemic.
According to an announcement from the tech giant, it will also allow employees to work from home though the end of Summer as governments and healthcare workers work to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Facebook already announced that it was canceling its convention, the F8 developer’s conference, which was due to take place in San Jose, California, in early May.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) announced that the social media giant is cancelling all of its major in-person events until June next year
‘Most Facebook employees are fortunate to be able to work productively from home, so we feel a responsibility to allow people who don’t have this flexibility to access shared public resources first,’ Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in statement.
‘I hope this helps contain the spread of Covid-19 so we can keep our communities safe and get back up and running again soon.’
As for events, Facebook says that it will cancel those that are ‘major,’ meaning they consist of 50 or more people, until June 2021. Instead it will host those events as online-only streams.
Facebook’s move mirrors steps taken by fellow tech giants like Microsoft which announced it will make internal and external events digital-only until July 2021.
According to an email sent by the company to its partners, obstacles created by a coronavirus pandemic are the impetus behind its decision
‘In light of the challenges presented by COVID-19, Microsoft has been closely monitoring the developing global situation and re-assessing the overall company-wide in-person event strategy,’ reads an email posted to Twitter.
‘As a company, Microsoft has made the decision to transition all external and internal events to a digital-first experience through July 2021.’
Notably, the decision to go digital-only until halfway through next year will affect the company’s attendance of major tech events like the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), one of the biggest yearly trade in the world.
Its decision also encompasses major gatherings like Microsoft Ignite which was scheduled to take place in September and acts as a springboard for developers and other IT professionals.
Microsoft will call off in-person events for the coming year amid an ongoing coronavirus pandemic that is forcing people around the world to remain isolated
Already Microsoft had announced the cancellation of its Build developers conference as well as its Inspire conference slated for July that usually attracts about 40,000 attendees.
Google has also already called off the remaining plans for one of its biggest conferences of the year, its annual I/O conference in San Francisco.
In a statement last month, the company said I/O won’t be taking place ‘in any capacity this year’ after cancelling an in-person conference earlier this month.
‘A GoogleIO update: Out of concern for the health and safety of our developers, employees, and local communities — and in line with “shelter in place” requirements by the local Bay Area government — we sadly will not be holding an I/O event in any capacity this year,’ wrote the company on Twitter.
Google had previously said that it was looking into an ‘alternative format’ for the conference – most likely an online-only event.