WarTweets — Derek Curry

WarTweets was a pervasive game that turned President Trump’s tweets into missiles that players could intercept by sending tweets to @realDonaldTrump on Twitter or directly from the game’s interface. In the game, every tweet made by @realDonaldTrump launched an orange missile that would destroy low and mid-income housing and replace it with a golden Trump tower if it reached its target. Players had several days to intercept Trump’s missiles by tweeting their disagreement, or approval, to @realDonaldTrump. WarTweets was also a gamification of several legal rulings that designated President Trump’s Twitter account as a constitutionally protected public forum and an official government record.

WarTweets was the gamification of a series of legal rulings and the politicization of a networked communications platform.

WarTweets was made possible when Federal judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled that President Trump cannot block any Twitter users from reading or posting to this account because it is a “designated public forum.” This meant that tweeting to @realDonaldTrump was a conduit for political speech that could not legally be censored by the President. Previously, US Courts had ruled that the Presidential Records Act of 1978 applies to Donald Trump’s personal Twitter account: @realDonaldTrump because it was being used for official announcements and proclamations. This meant that tweets made by this account during his time in office are official presidential records that will be preserved in the National Archives. Tweeting to Trump during his presidency provided a way for citizens to make their opinions of the Trump administration part of the official public record. WarTweets gamified this process, promoting political engagement through a playful form of networked dissent. The game ended on January 8, 2021 when Twitter permanently suspended Trump (this decision was later reversed by Elon Musk).