"Facebook’s Zuckerberg backs online political ad regulations forwarded by Sen. Amy Klobuchar," reported the Associated Press in 2018. "CEO Sam Bankman-Fried says crypto needs to embrace regulation," announced Business Insider in 2021. "AI leaders: Please regulate us," read an Axios headline in 2023.

In recent years, major U.S. companies, especially in the tech industry, have given new life to a longstanding corporate PR strategy: self-regulation. It's a common tactic. After a scandal — say, revelations about pollution, rampant scams, or large-scale invasions of privacy — corporations rebrand as repentant and disciplined, ready to pay their debts to society and embrace the public good. "No need for oppressive and overly burdensome regulation", they insist, "we can handle it ourselves."

This, of course, isn't the real intention. Historically, this corporate voluntarism has generated little more than a few cosmetic reforms, if that, and allowed the continuation of business as usual in every industry from slavery to oil to tobacco to crypto, save for the occasional sacrificial lamb. So why, and how, do media keep assuring their audiences that, This Time, It's Different? That this time corporate America has learned its lesson and can be trusted to regulate itself?

On this episode, we examine the centuries-old damage-control strategy of industry self-regulation, looking at how corporate claims of self-policing, aided by news media, buy time and goodwill while concealing an agenda of weakening pre-existing regulations, manipulating new laws to the benefit of the private sector, or, often, preventing regulation altogether. Our guest is the Revolving Door Project's assistant director Timi Iwayemi.

Episode 224: Corporate Self-Regulation and the Fine Art of 'Preempting" Public Outrage

Ep 226: The Importance of 'Seriousness,' or Why Palestinians Can't Be Witness to Their Own Genocide (Part I)

There isn’t yet a tariff on conspiracist narratives. So former Daily Wire podcaster Candace Owens imported one from France. Which is why she now finds herself the subject of a serious lawsuit filed by the French President Emmanuel Macron and the First Lady Brigitte Macron. 

Owens used Instagram influencer aesthetics to recycle a 2021 theory for American audiences that was originally promoted by a French spiritual medium and spread through “Yellow Vest” and antivax networks. For some reason, Owens wasn’t satisfied with the genuinely odd history of the Macrons’ relationship (they met when Brigitte was married with children and Emmanuel was just 14, despite most American sources claiming they met when he was 15.) Instead she picked up the convoluted conspiracy theory that Brigitte is really her brother Jean-Michel Trogneux who became a trans woman and proceeded to assist with turning Emmanuel into an MKULTRA-controlled “Manchurian Candidate.” In Owen’s ludicrous tale, the Macrons then killed anyone who started asking questions about Brigitte’s past, Clinton-body-count style. But since this nonsense is powered by crude bigotry rather than any investigatory impulse, the evidence is unsurprisingly weak. Owens’ method of argumentation involves ignoring the fact that Jean-Michel Trogneux is clearly alive and a separate person, looking at real photos and declaring them fake, and birthday numerology. 

Travis, Jake, and Julian unpack Owens’ past, the history of the conspiracy theory, how she promoted it through the 8-part series “Becoming Brigitte,” and the lawsuit that now threatens her independent media empire.


Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/qaa


Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)

https://qaapodcast.com

QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

///

We’ve launched a new podcast miniseries network: Cursed Media. The very first Cursed Media miniseries is Science in Transition. 

Science in Transition is an investigation into the intellectual origins of the contemporary right wing backlash against transgender acceptance. Through six deeply-researched episodes, hosts Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows unearth a bizarre coalition of well-meaning clinicians, aristocratic sexologists, militant feminists, right-wing culture warriors, headline-chasing journalists, and conservative politicians.

Binge all six episodes of Science In Transition by subscribing through this link.

www.cursedmedia.net/

Subscribers to Cursed Media get access to three new podcast series per year, plus every episode of QAA’s existing mini-series (properly organized!)

////


Becoming Candace (E335)

"Exclusive Look at Life in War-Ravaged Gaza," reads the title for a CNN interview with correspondent Clarissa Ward. "'It's a Killing Field': IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid," report Yaniv Kubovich and Bar Peleg for Ha'aretz. "I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It," argues Omer Bartov in The New York Times.

These stories have something in common: they’re vital pieces of journalism about Gaza, or Palestine more broadly, published in Western and Western-aligned outlets. This is, obviously, important. Reporting like this keeps Western audiences informed about Israel’s genocide in Gaza, fortifies sympathetic Westerners’ solidarity with Palestine, and serves as an essential counter to the pro-Israel PR machine powering so much other Western media coverage.

But while these pieces have made a splash among their audiences, in many cases, they’re building upon points that Palestinian journalists, writers, and activists had been making weeks, months, even years before. So why is the reporting of Palestinian journalists–especially their reporting on what’s happening within their own country and cities–so often ignored, only to be heeded after it gets the Western stamp of approval?

On this episode — our Season 8 finale and also the second part of our two-part series on “The Importance of Seriousness, or Why Palestinians Can’t Be Witness to Their Own Genocide” — we explore the discrepancies in the alleged credibility between Western and Israeli journalists and Palestinian and other Arab journalists, especially when it comes to reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza. We’ll look at how, by Western standards, journalists don’t build legitimacy by being correct, so much as by being in close proximity to the political and media establishments.

Our guest is writer and organizer Kaleem Hawa.

Ep 227: The Importance of 'Seriousness,' or Why Palestinians Can't Be Witness to Their Own Genocide (Part II)

Journalist and author Seth Harp returns to the pod to talk about his horrifying and expansive new book The Fort Bragg Cartel. We talk with Seth about America’s forever-war machine and the global drug empire it empowers, with a special focus on the case of Delta Force officer William Lavigne, who killed his best friend before turning up dead near Fort Bragg in a still-unsolved murder. We also discuss the rise of JSOC, the third Iraq War and its ongoing ramifications, the US military’s ties with the brutal Los Zetas cartel, and the eternal shadow war waged in the name of empire.

Buy Seth’s book here (and give it 5 stars on Amazon!): https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/730414/the-fort-bragg-cartel-by-seth-harp/ 
And follow him on X at @sethharpesq


961 - The Dogs of War feat. Seth Harp (8/18/25)

Will Sommer of The Bulwark returns to Chapo to talk about the right’s reaction to the assassination of Charlie Kirk as well as his funeral proceedings in Arizona. We recap the Groyper War that preceded the assassination and the pressure it put on Kirk to move right, as well as the conspiracies surrounding his shooting. Was Israel involved? Why was there no exit wound? Did Charlie have a late-in-life conversion to Catholicism? And which faction of the right will be able to define the man’s legacy?

Follow Will Sommer on Twitter/X: https://x.com/willsommer 

971 - The Years of Whatever feat. Will Sommer (9/22/25)

Ep 228 - Billionaires as Insta-Experts: How Our Media Conflates Extreme Wealth with Expertise

What once was fringe is now just normal. To chat about the new, strange normality, Jake, Julian, and Travis are joined by USA Today extremism report Will Carless. Carless has reported all over the globe for two decades, and has just released the first episode of his new video documentary series "Extremely Normal."

The crew chats about the James Comey indictment, Trump's executive order declaring antifa "domestic terrorists," attempts to rewrite the history of January 6th, and why some young men continue to be drawn towards the message of Andrew Tate.


Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes:
https://patreon.com/qaa


Extremely Normal from Will Carless and USA Today
https://youtu.be/NoC7t29e__A?si=f9m2Y8XVGBo2wl89

Will Carless
https://x.com/willcarless


Check out our new podcast series network Cursed Media and binge the entirety of our new show Science in Transition by Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows: https://cursedmedia.net

Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)

https://qaapodcast.com

QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.


What's Normal Anymore? (E342)

Jacob Silverman is back to walk us through the absurd levels of crypto corruption in the White House and his new book Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/gilded-rage-elon-musk-and-the-radicalization-of-silicon-valley-jacob-silverman/90640a782bd09515

Hit the tip line: (646) 801-1129 | tips@trueanon.com

Discover more episodes at podcast.trueanon.com


Episode 496: Money for Nothing

Dylan Saba joins us to talk about the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, what’s in the 20-point plan, and what the present looks like in Gaza.

Check out Dylan’s new show, Turbulence: https://turbulencepod.substack.com/

Hit the tip line: (646) 801-1129 | tips@trueanon.com

Discover more episodes at podcast.trueanon.com

Episode 498: Deal Flow Donald

In this News Brief, we detail how the AP, Atlantic, Washington Post and New York Times are accepting Trump's framing that his attacks on Venezuela and Colombia are about "going after drug cartels" when it's clear they are—based on Trump's own words—about controlling Venezuela's oil.

News Brief: As Trump Attacks Venezuela, Media Takes His Absurd “Drug War” Pretext at Face Value

Citations Needed is a podcast about the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit. It is hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson, and produced by Florence Barrau-Adams.

Ep 226: The Importance of 'Seriousness,' or Why Palestinians Can't Be Witness to Their Own Genocide (Part I)

Citations Needed Podcast

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