Welcome back to New World Next Week. I'm James Corbett of CorbettReport.com.
And I'm James Evan Palato of MediaMonarchy.com, a readjustment of our global
military presence to address urgent threats in our hemisphere.
We have got that story, plus streaming wars killed the theater star.
But first, big story out of Australia.
Millions of children and teens lose access to what I'm calling their digital
whoopee, but it's the under-16 social media ban, grabbing this from The Guardian.
Australia has enacted a world-first ban on social media for users aged under
16, causing millions of children and teenagers to lose access to their accounts.
Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Kik,
Twitch, and TikTok, not Kik, are expected to have taken steps Wednesday to remove
accounts held by users under 16 in Australia and prevent those teens from registering new accounts.
There have been some teething problems with the ban's implementation.
Guardian Australia received several reports of those under 16 passing the facial
age assurance tests, but the government has flagged it as not expecting the
ban would be perfect from day one.
All listed platforms apart from the greatest one, the artist formerly known
as Twitter, confirmed they would comply with the ban.
E-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said it
had recently had a conversation with X about how it would comply but
the company had not communicated that policy to you
know the users blue sky the big democrat
x alternative announced it would also ban under 16s despite e-safety assessing
the platform as low risk due to not many people are on that thing children had
spent the past few weeks undertaking age assurance checks swapping phone numbers
and preparing for their accounts to be activated don't forget me over summer,
Parents of the children affected by the ban shared a spectrum of views on the
policy. That's not the only spectrum these kids and parents are on.
I'm, this is jerk ass Jim. I don't have kids. One parent told the Guardian that
their 15 year old daughter was very distressed because all her 14 and 15 year
old friends have been age verified as 18 by Snapchat.
Since she has been identified as under 16, they feared her friends will keep
using Snapchat to talk and organize social events.
And she, well, of course, that longtime teenage fear of being left out.
Another parent said the band had forced him to teach his kid how to break the law.
I've shown her how VPNs work and how other methods on bypassing age restrictions.
I've had to set her up with her own adult YouTube account. That's going to go well.
And have assisted her in bypassing TikTok's age estimation and will keep doing so each time it asks.
Other parents said the band couldn't come quickly enough. One parent said their
daughter was completely addicted to social media and the ban provides us with
a support framework to let daddy government do stuff for us.
The Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albany, said in an opinion piece on Sunday
from the beginning, we acknowledge this process won't be 100% perfect,
but the message this law sends will be 100% clear.
Australia sets the legal drinking age at 18 because our society recognizes the
benefit to the individual in the community of such an approach.
The fact that teenagers occasionally find a way to have a drink doesn't diminish
the value of having a clear national standard.
It is still 21 here in the States and they recently raised ciggies to the age
of 21 pretty much de facto across America.
But yeah, they basically, they've had to use their voting power since they're
just powerless to raise children themselves.
Again, this is always for the other, this, the other, the bad those other bad
parents these aren't with me and my i'm i'm really good.
What, are parents too dumb to save their kids from lawn darts,
James? I made it. I survived.
Gen X often jokes about the things we survived through in the 70s and 80s.
But yeah, more laws to do what parents just couldn't possibly do for themselves.
In related news, Ireland plants flag for child online safety as it prepares
to assume EU presidency.
Age assurance for porn, social media on the table. but big tech ties factor in.
Basically, they're going to get their good deals out of it. And interesting
stuff always going on with the criminals in the UK's Ofcom office.
They would like to double down on file monitoring in 2026.
You've heard the, there's no such thing as a cloud. There's only someone else's computer.
James, earlier this year, we had the Nepal kids elect new government via Discord.
And here we have all of those social medias being banned in Australia. What do you think?
Uh, there's a few things to say about this. First of all, not for the first
time and not for the last time, we're going to note how the won't somebody think
of the children is weaponized against everyone.
Because all this does, of course, is put everyone in the age verification net,
which is the first step towards the digital identification.
So that's an important part of this story. Another important part of the story
would be to note the latest from futurism.com.
Social media is absolutely nuking children's brain, new research finds.
Again, nothing that I think people in our audience won't already know,
but But more data along those lines talking about how social media is affecting
people's attention span.
Surprise, surprise. But I think there's at least one good thing to come out of this story.
One tiny bit of a silver lining that we can take out.
And that is that part that you highlight there. The parent said that the band
had forced him to teach his child how to break the law.
I've shown her how VPNs work and other methods on bypassing age restrictions. Great.
Wonderful. Welcome to the counter economy, fellow agorists. This is what it is about.
It is about the nonviolent resistance and absolute defiance and breaking of immoral laws.
And that's we're all doing it 18 times a day or whatever.
You know, however many felonies people commit a day without even realizing it
because of all the stupid laws on the book.
Here are more stupid laws that should not exist and people should learn how
to break them. So Australians who can still hear our voice should be teaching
others being VPN apple seeds, you know, spreading the wonders of
these workarounds to other people. So I think that that is good because,
again, it's one more sign for people who need it.
Yes, the government doesn't mean always a good thing and that you should just
follow whatever they say. So hopefully that those children are learning a very
important lesson right now.
And the other thing I'd like to say about this is that sometimes there is that
we have the tendency to fall into victim blaming in all of this,
as in all these stupid people with their stupid social media and they care about
these things and they shouldn't. Yes.
Okay. Certainly it is nuking your brain. You should be getting off of it,
et cetera, et cetera. But it isn't always that straightforward.
And I'd like to point people to an incredibly interesting, detailed,
nuanced article by Gabriel of Libra Solutions.
Teachable moment. Will the digital control grid inevitably fail or is it already here?
And he points out not only the ways that the technological side of this has
been constructed around us to essentially snarf up all of our data and put us
in the digital control grid,
but how the socioeconomic fabric of our entire society is woven around us in
these technological structures that are all dependent on us jumping through
these digital hurdles and hoops.
And then we victim blame and go, oh, these stupid people who are jumping through
these hoops that have been set up before them.
Well, you know, it's an incredibly difficult process of extracting yourself
from this. So it's a really good, interesting article. I really suggest people take a look at it.
So let me flip it around back at you.
There is a Florida cell phone ban in schools that has been instituted,
and it's now basically been in effect for about a year, and they're already
showing that test scores have gone up.
You might be running into something like this in the not-too-distant future,
where you have kids or devices in school. I mean, what do you think?
Oh, well, here, the kids are more increasingly encouraged to use devices,
because it's now part of your education, you have to have technological literacy.
So they'll be given tablets and things for use in class.
So yeah, it is genuinely a question
that I think everyone on the planet is going through at this time.
And I think, again, I am a functional, sovereign adult human being who can make choices for my family.
And the government does not need to be a part of that decision.
There's also the entire other concern of all our parents having these smartphones, too.
James, that's how we get going on New World Next Week episode 612.
We often remind ourselves on the monarchy and just here at home having arguments, discussions.
It's not all one thing. And I think that's what you were getting at right there.
Whenever article recently and covering a lot of this on my morning monarchy
this week, James, as this story, this was kicking in in Australia this week.
Children under five addicted to brain rot content online.
Again, a lot of frightening, scary things that.
Pretty much unprecedented. It's possible the planners of the Grand Chess Board
have already planned all this out and knew what would happen,
but the things we're seeing the last 20 years of what suddenly happens when
people have godlike power in their hands,
playing God has a lot of dangers.
So let's go to the movies. Cinemas on Edge.
Netflix's Warner Brothers deal sparks concern for theatrical industry.
Grabbing this from ScreenRealm.com and everything we say, all our outrageous
accusations are all sourced and cited down in the show notes.
People still go to the cinema?
Netflix owning Warner Brothers and HBO Max isn't just a streaming story, it's a cinema story.
With Netflix positioned to acquire one of Hollywood's last major studios in
an $82 billion deal, the future of theatrical releases is suddenly in question.
People going out into a movie theater in sitting down and watching the film.
Depending on who you ask, this is neither a new era of opportunity or the beginning
of a very long one, a very worrying decline for movie theaters.
One of the biggest questions after the announcement was simple.
Will Netflix actually keep Warner Brothers films in cinemas?
Ted Sarando says yes, at least in the short term.
The Netflix co-CEO has insisted that the company has no opposition to movies
in theaters, and the official announcement from Netflix says expects to maintain
Warner Brothers' current operations
and build on the strengths including theatrical releases for films.
On a conference call with investors and the press, Sarandos pointed to Netflix's
existing theatrical footprint,
noting that the company had released 30 films into movie theaters in 2025,
but he was also clear about where Netflix's real focus lies.
Again, they didn't call it DVD mail for nothing.
It's not like we have this opposition to movies into theaters,
Sarando said, as quoted by Variety.
My pushback has mostly been in the face, in the fact, of long exclusive windows,
which we really don't think are consumer friendly.
But when we talk about keeping HBO operating largely as it is,
that also includes their output movie deal with Warner Brothers,
which includes a life cycle that starts in the movie theater,
which we're going to continue to support.
Cinema owners have not exactly been reassured. because Netflix's stated business
model does not support theatrical exhibition. In fact, it is the opposite.
Regulators must look closely at the specifics of this proposed transaction and
understand the negative impact it will have on consumers, exhibition,
and the entertainment industry. The fear is straightforward.
Warner Brothers is still one of the few studios still deeply committed to theatrical
windows with a track record of delivering global event films.
If that pipeline is shortened or eventually rerouted towards streaming-first
strategy, cinemas feel the impact immediately.
For years, Netflix has pushed back against the traditional 45- to 90-day exclusive
theatrical window, arguing the long gaps between cinema and home release are
not consumer-friendly.
It's not how people consume media in 2025.
The acquisition of a major theatrical studio turns that long-running philosophical
debate into a very practical one. And James, I know you and I a little bit off
camera have discussed the work of Christopher Nolan.
He is obviously a film buff and lover and supporter.
And much like Martin Scorsese does a lot of work to fund the preservation of
films, so films don't literally explode or fall apart.
He's actually the president of the DGA, the Directors Guild of America.
Christopher Nolan plans to meet with Netflix to address major concerns regarding
the streamer's acquisition of Warner Brothers again, as he always wants his movies in theaters.
In film, right, James? He wants his stuff in at least a 35 millimeter film.
And of course, as the IMAX theaters have blown up a lot more,
you can go see a lot of his movies in 70 millimeter.
Netflix and Paramount lock horns in Warner Brothers Discovery acquisition saga.
Paramount has now launched a counter hostile takeover.
It's kind of exciting in the world of nerd media business.
Netflix to acquire Warner Brothers following the separation of Discovery Global
for a total enterprise value of 82.
Paramount is offering over a hundred billion and they don't have to spin off
any of their little ancillary parts.
Of course, I've talked about this a lot on Media Monarchy. I don't call it Media Monarchy for nothing.
There's already a consumer class action lawsuit against it.
And James, it's important to remind that Mark Bernays Randolph was the co-founder
and first CEO of Netflix, great grandnephew of Edward Bernays,
widely regarded as the father of propaganda and great-grandnephew of Sigmund Freud,
the founder of psychoanalysis, and the guy that apparently unleashed the cocaine
destruction of America.
James, sidebar, watched a documentary on cocaine recently.
It's mostly Sigmund Freud's fault.
This familial connection has led to speculation and discussion online about
potential influences on Netflix's content and user engagement strategies,
with some suggesting that the platform may leverage psychological principles
derived from Bernays' work on public opinion manipulation.
James, I just don't want Netflix owning DC Comics.
Amongst other things. Yeah. You know what? You took the words out of my mouth.
I don't have a lot to add on this in terms of the conspiracy realist angle on
this story, except I was going to say I am just flabbergasted that Paramount
didn't immediately win the bid because,
of course, we know it's Zionist supremacist David Ellison obviously buddies
through his father, Larry Ellison, with Trump himself.
So you would have expected that Paramount would have just, you know,
would have won easily, but not yet at any rate.
Interesting. Although, as you say, I mean, what's the other side of this? Oh, good. Oh, good.
Netflix is one. Oh, wait. Right. Bernays, all that stuff. No,
it's not, you know, cutie flicks, as we have taken to calling it. Right.
This is this is not a win for anyone, really.
But perhaps it's just a good time to take stock and to give ourselves another
reminder that all of this Hollywood programming is psychological manipulation
and warfare that has been wedged on the public for at least a century at this point.
And maybe, maybe it will cause a few more people to go, you know what,
maybe we don't need the Hollywood studio system and we don't need to rely on
they, them, those to give us our entertainment slash indoctrination.
And hey, you know what, we can make movies for ourselves these days relatively easily.
Maybe more people should be doing it.
I have speculated, as a lot of this, again, is ongoing story these last few
weeks, I speculated that, ah,
Trump might intervene in this going to Netflix in order to help out his Zionist
Ellison buddies over at Paramount.
And again, the broken clock, right, two times a day. I'm like, yeah, I do that.
But again, we were talking about this at home the other day.
It does get down to just kind of nitty gritty, real nerdy consumer choice.
So when Microsoft buys Skype and decides to let it die and end,
that's less consumer choice.
So the fear is on this standpoint, why would Netflix continue to do anything for Warner Brothers?
Hey, Netflix already has their own Sandman DC Comics TV show. We'll just run that one.
They've already removed. Disney does not want you to see Song of the South.
That's why it's not on their streaming platform. There's example after example
after example again why this might not be a good idea.
Again, just for the whole consumer choice thing.
Our third and final story, where we usually hide the media-related story, James.
It's just stuff about World War III. New national security strategy.
A stunning departure, yet full of contradictions. Grabbing this from the Ron Paul Institute.
You know that I like? How Ron Paul's never lost the plot and never sold out
and still does his thing and still does his show all the time.
The final U.S. national security strategy was just published and the refocus
on the Western Hemisphere, i.e.
The Americas, North and South, is confirmed.
The document clearly establishes this as the U.S.'s number one priority, saying that the U.S.
Will now assert and enforce a Trump corollary to Monroe doctrine.
James, do you say corollary or corollary?
Only because I'm pretentious, I'll say corollary. But North Americans generally
say corollary, yeah. Corollary. Okay.
Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. More on that in a moment.
In terms of military presence, they write that this means a readjustment of
our global military presence to address urgent threats in our hemisphere and
away from theaters whose relative import to American national security has declined
in recent decades or years.
The most striking aspect is that China is not anymore defined as the primary
threat, most consequential challenge, pacing threat, or similar formulations
used in previous such documents, it's clearly downgraded as a priority.
Based on the document structure and emphasis, the top U.S.
Priorities could be characterized as, here's the top four, homeland security
and borders, migration, cartels, etc., Western Hemisphere, Monroe Doctrine Restoration,
economic security, re-industrialization and supply chains, and number four,
China and Indo-Pacific.
To be clear, they do not define China as an ally or a partner in any shape or
form, but primarily as an economic competitor, a source of supply chain vulnerabilities,
but also a trading partner and a player whose regional dominance should be ideally
denied because it has major implications for the U.S. economy.
For the first time ever, they mentioned the possibility of maybe being overmatched militarily by China.
And we do have the PDF link for you from WhiteHouse.gov, National Security Strategy
of the United States of America, November 2025.
And we will include the link to the Monroe Doctrine. I didn't grab the link.
This goes back to President James Monroe, December 1823, during his seventh
annual State of the Union Address. He's basically talking about the new world
and the old world and spheres of influence. James, I'll just leave that there.
In other spheres of influence or lack thereof, world risks disintegration of
the international order as noted boy toy Macron fails to woo Xi into pressuring Putin.
James, grand chessboard.
Absolutely. And, you know, there's so much going on on this chessboard,
but it all is it all makes perfect sense.
Once you understand what is happening, we are seeing the breakdown of the post-World
War II international order.
That is what Macron is talking about. That's what all the globalists are lamenting,
because, of course, the post-World War II order was all based on the American
empire hegemony and essentially the the order that comes from that.
And that is breaking down and in a number of different ways.
And this national security strategy about face
that's happening right now is one example of that and we're seeing it
play out already um obviously all the drug boat strikes
and as we are recording this the latest is that the u.s
has apparently seized an oil tanker off the coast of venezuela so
things obviously heating up in uh south america and this is that uh trump corollary
or corollary of the monroe doctrine in in action in play and what this means
if this really is a u.s retrenchment back to its own sphere of influence in the new world.
Then what does that mean for, for example, Japan and Taiwan and the whole spat
that's happening with China right now?
And Japan, apparently the new prime minister is getting a little bit upset with
Trump because, hey, guys, shouldn't you be backing us up on this whole Taiwan-China spat thing?
And you're not doing enough to help us here. And you guys are on your own.
And all of this craziness that would have been unthinkable even a few years
ago is happening right now.
And of course, we see what's going on in Ukraine and all of this. There's a lot of
a lot of crises around the world right now that show that the international
order is in crisis, and boy are they going to try to rend a new order out of
the chaos that is going on right now.
But perhaps all of this, this whole story is in a way a corollary to reportage.
Or as I would say, a corollary to reportage, specifically my essay on escaping the grand chessboard.
So if people haven't read reportage yet, I hope they go to reportagebook.com
to get their copy and read that essay, because I think what we're living through
is a very, very, very grand change on the chessboard.
But we have a part to play in this, at the very least, by withdrawing our participation in this game.
The world is not a chessboard. It is not. We are not pieces of pawns on a board to be moved around.
And at the very least, we shouldn't be sending our sons and daughters off to
die in wars of aggression for the oligarchs.
Now, we've talked in the past about those, I don't know how many,
I just just want those bases in Okinawa have been the source of massive protests,
rightfully so, on a lot of disgusting kind of crime stories.
So has that has that died down in some way?
Is that more of like, hey, now we're glad we've got Johnny America in our backyard a little?
Well, no, I'm sure that most of the Okinawans probably still feel what they
felt a few years ago, but they've never had a large degree of political influence
in actually affecting what's going to happen on Okinawa, and now even less so,
leaving less chance, because yes,
I think a larger proportion of the Japanese public are now whipped up into at
least China frenzy, if not outright hatred yet.
And my mother asked is james okay he's not where the earthquake hit is he,
i am very very very far away and
didn't feel a thing so thank you to all the people who did write
in but yeah i mean okay james that
is new world next week episode 612 the penultimate
for 2025 i play the exclusive
audio of these new world next week episodes before they're published on
my website or james's website i do that after
my thursday morning monarchy at mediamonarchy.com slash
listen and throw out a quick reminder from
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Again, I've run into, we can't yet do Canadian checks.
Your endorsement is perpendicular. It blew my mind when I flipped over a Canadian
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Ours goes the right way up. Yours goes the normal sideways.
So we do have the post office box. Again, that is a way that you can support
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I am not your mule to send things over to Japan, but any support given will
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Hey, speaking of digital stuff, we also run newworldnextweek.com.
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Yes, yes. And I hope people will take advantage of it.
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I check the USBs, James, when they come in. So I was just double checking the
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And someone in the chat just this past week in my media monarchy,
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And you know what happens next week. We don't know what the other is going to talk about.
We are one week away from the feared, anticipated New World Next Year 2026.
We talk about our stories of the past year, and we give our sort of predictions
about what we think might be the trend of the next year.
It is the only episode where we do not know what the other are going to talk
about. We each bring our stories to the table.
And James, you said you did the double check, and you're going first this year?
That seems to be the order, and I think I have my story of the year,
and I think I have of a trend for next year, but I am going to hold off in case
the aliens land on the front of the White House lawn next week or something.
Full disclosure that is new world next week episode 612 james i so much appreciate
getting to work with you buddy thank you i i appreciate it very much but just
uh one more thing uh for the people who want to do the p.o box money order check
thing who should they make that out to,
media monarchy just make the money or check out to media monarchy and include
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And that is the way we write the P.O. Box address down in the show notes for
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So that is, again, what you can just make the checks right out to Media Monarchy.
You know, like George Bush said, just send your cash.
All right. On that note, see you next week. Thanks, man. Take care.