BBC Bots

Like many media orgs, our coverage is blocked or censored in various places around the world. After noticing the top app download in some of those places, like Uzbekistan, was a messaging platform called Telegram - with APIs and support for bots - we wondered if it could help us get our news out there.

By leveraging existing World Service RSS feeds, we were able to build a web-based admin that gives editors the power to create and manage bots without needing to know how to code them. These bots respond to custom commands that distribute news on demand or daily, just the headlines or full articles.

We’re now looking at ways to simplify the management of bots across chat, messaging and social media platforms: a single admin interface, a flexible plugin-based infrastructure.