Facebook announced this Tuesday, March 23, that unlike what happened in 2020, this year it will hold its traditional F8 developer conference, but it will do so in a completely virtual format and without the presence of its co-founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
The conference will be held online, but will not have the presence of Mark Zuckerberg.
F8 2021 will focus on a single day on June 2 – the usual thing in previous editions was that the conference lasted several days -, it will be open to software developers from around the world and will be broadcast by streaming, the company reported on its blog corporate.
Both Facebook and Google canceled their respective F8 and I / O developer conferences last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and among the big tech companies, Apple was the only one that did keep theirs, albeit in virtual format.
The firm from Menlo Park (California, USA) is the first to confirm the celebration in 2021 of this type of events in which the latest developments in software are presented and which bring together thousands of programmers from around the world.
Technology analysts expect F8 2021 to show news and tools for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Oculus.
In addition to the digital format, the other great novelty this year is the absence of Zuckerberg, who was normally a central figure in these types of events, but who this year will not intervene.
The CEO of the social network has been the subject of harsh criticism over the past year from both politicians and activists who reproach him for not doing enough to moderate hateful content and false information on the social network.
In parallel, the company faces two lawsuits filed against it late last year by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the attorneys general of 46 states and two US territories for alleged practices contrary to free competition.
Both lawsuits focus on acquisitions by the social network of competitors Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, operations that, paradoxically, were approved at the time by the FTC itself, the same entity that is now complaining against Facebook.
