Social media platform Twitter has asked its employees to work from home to prevent the spread of contagious coronavirus.

Twitter mentioned in a blog post that it was necessary for the employees in Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea to work from home.

Twitter has encouraged its 5,000 employees across the world to work from home.

Earlier, the company has also suspended all non-essential business tours and events for its employees.

Jennifer Christie, Twitter’s head of human resources, said, “Our goal is to lower the probability of the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus for us – and the world around us.”

Twitter has also canceled this month’s South by Southwest media conference in Austin, Texas.

The blog post also mentioned that the decision to work from home has been taken for some time: “While this is a big change for us, we have already been moving towards a more distributed workforce that’s increasingly remote.

We’re a global service and we’re committed to enabling anyone, anywhere to work at Twitter.”

Twitter’s chief executive Jack Dorsey has favored remote working. He had announced plans to stay in Africa for up to six months of this year.

It should be remembered that other giant companies such as Facebook and Google have postponed or canceled their events in the US. Facebook too pulled out of South by Southwest.