If you weren’t able to go to Monday’s meeting against Internet censorship, here’s a full report. If you’d like to watch videos of the speeches and debate at the meeting, click here to see the YouTube playlist of all nine videos from the meeting.

We hope to have some better quality video up soon.

Nicholas Perkins speaking

First up was Nicholas Perkins from Stop Internet Censorship Brisbane. You can watch part 1 of Nicholas’ speech on video here, and you can watch part two here.

Nick said:

* We’re here to stop Internet censorship becoming part of our everyday lives.

* The report received last week by Senator Conroy from Enex, that said Internet censorship was possible, was designed to get the answer that the Senator wanted.

* The Government will introduce legislation in Autumn 2010 to bring in its censorship plan before the next election.

* Senator Conroy constantly talks about how his censorship plan is only designed to block child pornography, which is a lie – as can be seen in the Untangling The Net report.

* The list of censored sites will be secret, even though many of the sites on it contain material that is perfectly legal for Australians to view and possess. The Australian Law Reform Commission issued a report saying just because something is refused classification, it shouldn’t be illegal to have it.

* “Would you trust a Government of any persuasion, now or in the future, to block Internet sites and not tell you what they are?”

* The Libertus.net website tells us that some of the information that would be banned under Senator Conroy’s censorship plan includes:

* Dr Philip Nitschke’s The Peaceful Pill Handbook, a pro-euthanasia book.

* Sheikh Abdullah Yusuf Azzam’s fatwa “Defence of the Muslim Lands and Join the Caravan.

* Whirlpool, an Australian-hosted site, has already been forced to take down a link to an anti-abortion site.

* Child pornography is abhorrent and we don’t support it. The Government’s censorship plan won’t and can’t protect children. It’s putting our heads in the sand and it won’t help the victims of child pornographers. We should instead be using our resources to go after these criminals.

* What this will be good for is censoring unpopular and anti-Government opinion.

* Only 30 years ago, street marches in Queensland were illegal (scroll down to section “The ban on street marches”) – also Wikipedia. If that were still the case today, websites discussing holding of political protests could also be censored under the new plan. We have no idea who will be in power down the track, but they will have the power to use these censorship laws.

* “I and you and everyone in this room and every adult in Australia has the right to decide what is appropriate for them and for their children”.

* “We will not stand for Government censorship of websites…we will fight this and we will win”.

Nic Suzor Speaking

Second to speak was Nic Suzor of Electronic Frontiers Australia. Part one of Nic’s speech is here on YouTube, and you can see part two here.

Nic said:

* It’s not the time to panic – we need to talk about reasonable steps we can take.

* Broadband speed is not a big issue – it’s a red herring for us. It won’t be that difficult to block 10 000 websites by banning their web addresses from Australian users.

* 3 main points:

1) “Refused Classification” material is MUCH broader than just child pornography – Senator Conroy has “wiped the floor with us” by being able to claim that his plan is to stop child porn. Child porn only makes up about one-third of the current list of material that is refused classification. The other two-thirds is legal for Australians to see.

2) The key to protecting children is education, empowerment, supervision, and voluntary filtering

3) The key to combating child sexual abuse is to fund police and foster international co-operation. For instance the Queensland Police’s Task Force Argos hunts for online sexual predators and traders of child porn.

* Letter writing (with pen and paper) is still one of the best things people can do – write to:

**Senator Conroy, the Minister for Communications.

** Tony Smith MP, the Opposition spokesperson for Communications. [Mr Smith's latest statement on the Government's censorship plans is here].

** Your local Federal MP – click here to search for your local MP.

** The Senators for your state – click here for a list of Senators by state.

** The Greens Senators, especially Senator Ludlam, their spokesperson on Net Censorship, the Family First’s Senator Fielding and Independent Senator Xenophon.

** [For a sample letter written to a local MP recently, click here Also see Bernard Keane's article in Crikey on writing to Ministers, and "Liberal Hack" Tim Andrew's advice on how and why to approach Liberal MPs and Senators].

* Michael Meloni’s site The Gift of Censorship – http://www.thegiftofcensorship.com is an excellent site explaining the issue of net censorship for people who don’t know much about it yet.

* The EFA is organising events for Australia Day and a national web blackout.

* The EFA is also looking to create a “Senate Watch” site to keep track of the Senators whose votes are needed to pass this scheme – the Government needs six extra votes to pass it’s new censorship regime. They also want to make a testimonials site from people likely to be affected by Net censorship.

* There was a short debate at the end of Nic’s speech about how best to write to politicians (see the links above). Also, one person said that we should not be mentioning the word “child” as that gives up far too much of the argument to Senator Conroy. Nic replied that he think it’s too late for that – we need to counter Senator Conroy’s arguments and ignoring them won’t work for us.

* Another person said that we’re “kidding ourselves” if we think we can get away with telling parents that they are wrong to be worried about child porn. Instead we need to say “Yes there are dangers to your children, let’s talk about the best way to manage them”.

Cameron Reilly speaking

Then Cameron Reilly from The Podcast Network spoke. You can watch part one of Cameron’s speech here, and part two is here on YouTube.

Cameron said:

* The battle here is about getting people’s attention

* We have an opportunity to galvanise the Australian social media landscape – we can get the Government to take us seriously on a range of issues

* This will need a co-ordinated, consistent and creative campaign, that works like an advertising campaign

* This campaign is about propaganda, not facts. Senator Conroy has done a good job of controlling the message so far. We have to become just as good.

* Right-wing people who use religion as a tool are gaining more and more power [eg the Australian Christian Lobby].

* Propaganda doesn’t use lies as such – it uses “half truths, limited truth and truth out of context” (Jacques Ellul). This is exactly what Conroy does when he says his censorship plan (or “filtering” as he calls it) is about protecting children from child porn or pro-rape sites and invites people to wonder who could possibly be opposed to that – although the censorship plan will also catch material that is legal to have, read and see.

We need a simple campaign slogan that can catch on like some of the more famous ones of the last forty years:

“It’s the economy, stupid”
“It’s Time”
“Stay the Course”
“Yes We Can”

*Some of the propaganda techniques we’ll need to learn are:

** name-calling (eg “You’re a terrorist”)

** glittering generalities (eg “If you don’t support censorship of the net, you love child porn”)

** the bandwagon effect – using people’s desire to be on the winning side

** card-stacking – making sure the conversation takes place on your terms (EG Senator Conroy only talks with people who already support him)

** “plain folks” technique – politicians like to associate themselves with ordinary people

* We need constant content – EG:

** YouTube videos made by people who support us (that’s YOU!) – one example is to approach your local MP with a video camera and ask them questions about Net censorship

** Cartoons and comics – Ben Templesmith, a famous Australian comic book artist, has told Cameron he would like to help

** Podcasts, interviews, etc

** Political minds, lawyers etc to come up with ideas for what to ask and what to talk about

*If we come up with content that becomes really popular, we extend our reach to millions of people. If Twitter and other social media can make movies and products popular, it can also work with political ideas.

After the three speakers there was a public debate. Debating the issues among the people who come to meetings (and online with people who can’t get to meetings) is very important – making sure everyone has a chance to thrash out the issues is the best way for us to build a strong movement with lots of people.

The videos of the debate are here:

Part one
Part two
Part three

Points raised in the debate:

* At meetings like this one we are ALREADY in the presence of the converted, so we don’t have to talk about how bad the Net censorship plan is, but rather about how we can defeat it.

* We have to get out amongst the unconverted, into the suburbs, debate them and try to win them to our point of view

* When we get out to the suburbs we have to dress well and not alienate people – like the “Clean for Gene” campaign, when hippies turned out in force and cleaned up to try to convince the public to support anti-Vietnam War US Presidential candidate Gene McCarthy in 1968.

* We should be approaching businesses to point out that this will affect how they do business online

* We need to remember that we are talking not about child porn, but human rights

* We can’t convince the silent majority with arguments about child porn or censorship. We need to talk to them about transparency

* Kieran Salsone will be editing the QUT Student Guild magazine in 2010, so any QUT students to want to write about the Government’s censorship plan should contact him.

* We need to think about possible ways to make the campaign positive. However we really can’t help but talk about child porn – the agenda has already been set. We should talk about how the censorship won’t work – “Conroy’s Con”, perhaps.

* We should stop using the word “filter” and start saying “mandatory censorship”.

* If you can, one of the best places to discuss this is with your workmates – you can slowly feed them information over a long time.

* 1 good argument we should use are that this will make Australia the first democracy to bring in compulsory Net censors. Also, very few people have actually heard of this censorship plan yet.

* How can we get TV shows like Today Tonight or A Current Affair interested in this story?

* We should use the “Conroy’s Con” line to label Senator Conroy as someone who will make it harder to protect children from child porn.

* We need to have a “soccer mum” face (or several) to represent us in the media, so we can relate to the average people who aren’t on social media.

* We need to also be reaching newspapers like the Courier Mail

* This may be part of a plan to dumb-down Australia

* An attendee who works at Channel 10 is prepared to try to convince them to support us on air

* It’s very important that we know what we’re talking about when we talk to people [so follow all the handy links in this report!]

* We need to discuss not just tactics, but work out what our end goal is and how we will get there.

After the debate, Nicholas Perkins wrapped up, mentioning that we will have another meeting on Monday January 4th in the Community Meeting Room on the ground floor of Brisbane Square (the big building with the green covering and exposed pipes on the corner of Adelaide and George Sts in Brisbane City).

If you join the Stop Net Censorship Brisbane Facebook group we’ll be able send you details about the next meeting – or just follow this blog, or follow @StopNetCensors on Twitter and you’ll get informed about future meetings. If you’d like to help out, please get in touch via helpus@stopinternetcensorship.org

You can see photos from Monday’s meeting in the flickr group Stop Internet Censorship Brisbane. If you have any photos from Monday night, please consider uploading them to the group. Thank you very much to Benjamin Robinson for taking the photos in this article.

Thanks to Rosanna Ryan from the ABC for this report on Monday’s meeting.

And thank you to everyone who came along and started off this discussion – please keep the ideas coming, and we’ll see you on Monday January 4th!

UPDATES: Natalie Perkins has blogged about the meeting here. If you know of more reports, photos, videos etc of the meeting please leave a comment.