Facebook cancels its ‘large physical events’ through June 2021

MANILA, Philippines – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Friday, April 17, announced the company is canceling all its “large physical events” planned with 50 or more people through June 2021.

The said cancelation is part of a number of announcements regarding personnel direction for the company moving forward, just as the world eyes slowly reintegrating people back in public places – what is being called the reopening of society following the coronavirus pandemic. They are doing so, following the advice of health experts who are emphasizing that large groups aren’t advisable even after lockdown procedures soften. 

The company will be holding virtual events instead. Their policy of no business travel is extended through at least June of this year as well.

Here are the other key points:

The vast majority of Facebook employees will work from home if possible “through at least the end of May.” Zuckerberg says this is “in order to create a safer environment both for our employees doing critical jobs who must be in the office and for everyone else in our local communities.” 

A “small percent” of critical employees who can’t work remotely will likely return sooner. These include “content reviewers working on counter-terrorism or suicide and self-harm prevention, and engineers working on complex hardware,” said Zuckerberg. 

Employees will be allowed to continue to work from home, circumstancially. Zuckerberg said, “if there’s any reason they feel they can’t work in our offices – because they are in a vulnerable population, because with schools and camps canceled they don’t have childcare, or anything else – that they can plan to work from home through at least the summer.” – Rappler.com