Co-Constructing (Twisted) Knowledge: Argumentation in Far-Right YouTube Comments on Brazil’s War with X’s Elon Musk

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Social media can foster collective knowledge construction alongside communication.However, these platforms can also be hubs for disseminating distorted or "twisted" knowledge, particularly within extremist contexts.This study analyzes argument negotiation in the comments section of a far-right YouTube channel implicated in anti-democratic activities in Brazil.Using an adapted coding scheme from Dubovi and Tabak (2020), we examined 123 comments to identify patterns of argumentation and knowledge construction.Findings reveal three key insights: (1) users engage in logical reasoning that often leads to the construction of misinformation, reinforcing ideological polarization; (2) participants primarily act as consumers interacting with the influencer rather than engaging in peer-to-peer dialogue, limiting the potential for civic discourse; (3) instances of deeper argumentation reveal the potential for fostering critical engagement.These results highlight the interplay between argument negotiation and disinformation on social media, emphasizing the need for strategies to mitigate extremism and foster constructive dialogue online. Introduction and literature reviewAmong the many ways social media has become part of life in society, its role in politics is remarkable.Elected officials, activists, and lay citizens all take part in online conversations concerning politics at different levels.One disturbing facet of that relationship is the association between social media and alt-right extremism.For example, evidence has been found of paths toward radicalization through YouTube's recommendation systems (Haroon et al., 2023).While echo chambers amplify the problem, we argue that distorted learning processes on social media foster attachment to self-generated theories.By "distorted," we refer to learning processes where logical reasoning reinforces preexisting ideological biases, often resulting in misinformation (Burdick & Sandlin, 2022).In this paper, we analyze evidence of collective knowledge construction in the comments section of a YouTube channel that was taken down for involvement in anti-democratic speech leading to a coup attempt in Brazil in January 2023.Educational research has increasingly recognized social media as learning settings beyond mere communication spaces.The dynamics of social media have been compared to constructivist learning, emphasizing users' social and emotional involvement (Greenhow & Robelia, 2009).Researchers adhering to sociocultural perspectives on learning have identified how engagement in social movements involves participation in social media in ways that can be framed as participation in communities of practice (Gleason, 2013(Gleason, , 2016;;Gleason et al., 2021).Other approaches identified evidence of collective knowledge construction on Facebook (Asterhan & Hever, 2015) and TikTok (Nguyen & Diederich, 2023).Dubovi and Tabak (2020) proposed a coding scheme to identify stages in the process of knowledge construction that could be identified in YouTube comments: they put forth the proposition that comment sections transcend the "transmission model" that characterizes instructional video on social media and promote an environment of collective knowledge construction.That line of scholarship indicates that learning processes are also possible in social media.However, research shows that not all learning on social media is beneficial: scholarly work points to the existence of "public pedagogies" -learning that happens beyond traditional settings like schools, often through media and popular culture (Hayes & Gee, 2011) -supporting the expansion of the alt-right.Researchers connect those detrimental types of learning with the work of networks of "informal miseducation" (Greenhalgh et al., 2021).Other work investigates how those networks operate by instrumentalizing pedagogical and discourse practices that imply transgression and rebelliousness against "the establishment," mainstream media, and academia (Tebaldi, 2021).Burdick and Sandlin (2022) identify pedagogical practices implemented by conspiracy QAnon that distort principles of critical pedagogy and scholarly dynamics of knowledge co-construction.That line of work demonstrates how the alt-right instrumentalized learning practices in pathways that lead to concrete threats to democracy, such as the involvement of QAnon in the Capitol riots and the implication of Brazilian YouTubers in the coup attempt in January 2023.This paper adopts a conceptual framework that draws from public pedagogy and collective knowledge construction to understand how informal learning occurs in extremist online spaces.We frame the YouTube