Twitter advises nearly 5,000 global employees to work from home

Twitter Inc. is "strongly encouraging" all of its nearly 5,000 global employees to work from home due to concerns over the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, the company said Monday.

The social media company made the suggestion as part of a blog update one day after it suspended all non-critical travel for employees, including pulling out of the South by Southwest conference scheduled for later this month in Austin, Texas.

Twitter says it's mandatory for employees in Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea to work from home, but that other offices will remain open for those who choose or need to come in. "We are working to make sure internal meetings, all hands, and other important tasks are optimized for remote participation," the company wrote on its blog.

Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey is a big proponent of remote work, and has already announced plans to spend as much as six months working from Africa in 2020. "While this is a big change for us, we have already been moving towards a more distributed workforce that's increasingly remote," Twitter wrote Monday.