White House encourages more governments to build Facebook Messenger bots
In August, the White House launched the first-ever government Facebook Messenger bot, and since then, President Obama has received more than 1.5 million messages through the platform.
The Obama administration is now aiming to get other governments to follow its lead and embrace the burgeoning communications system by open-sourcing the code for its Messenger bot.
"Now, there is one less barrier to being more accessible and responsive to constituents," White House Chief Digital Officer Jason Goldman wrote in a blog post. "We look forward to seeing what others build on top of this work."
Specifically, the White House is open-sourcing a Drupal module. "While Drupal may not be the platform others would immediately consider for building a bot, this new White House module will allow non-developers to create bot interactions (with customized language and workflows), and empower other governments and agencies who already use Drupal to power their digital experiences," Goldman said.