Dive Brief:

• The White House announced it is open-sourcing a Drupal module used for its Facebook Messenger bot to enable developers to easily launch their own Facebook Messenger bot.
• According to the White House, the hope that other governments and developers can build similar services with less upfront investment.
•  The White House implemented the first-ever government bot on Facebook messenger on August 26.

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Dive Insight:

It’s a surprising announcement for the federal government, which is not traditionally known to employ cutting edge technologies like bots and open source. Jason Goldma, chief digital officer for the Obama administration, said it’s all about going where the public is (and perhaps a little bit about trying to look cool).

“Millions of people contact their friends and family using Facebook Messenger. Why shouldn’t they be able to contact the White House, too?,” wrote Goldman in a blog.

Goldman said the Drupal module comes with instructions and boiler plate code and is now available on GitHub.

The White House also hopes to empower other governments and agencies that already use Drupal to easily launch bots of their own.