For those of you in South Australia, there will be a meeting this Tuesday to discuss what you can do to fight the Internet filter.

The Federal Government plans to introduce mandatory internet
censorship, at the ISP level, for all Australians in 2010.

There is overwhelming opposition to the Government’s proposal from:

The IT and Telecommunications industries, the Right to Know Coalition, the Australian Librarian
and Information Association, child welfare groups such as Save the Children, major online
content providers like Yahoo! and Google – not to mention the Liberal Opposition,
Nick Xenophon and the Greens.

Street protesting and online campaigns have raised awareness in the online community.
Now it’s time to really step up the pressure on the Government and convince them that they
could lose votes, or even power, if they introduce this legislation.

Join other activists and concerned citizens to discuss lobbying techniques and
help develop a coherent, ongoing strategy to ensure Australia’s Internet access
remains open to every one of us. Your thoughts and input will be appreciated.

To be held in the Harry Medlin Rooms, Union House, Adelaide University
Tues March 2nd, 6.30-8.30PM
Meet from 5:30PM in the Cloisters to eat and network before the meeting commences

Here is the Facebook event page, including a map of how to get there.

This is a report of what was said at Monday’s meeting. Not everything here will be things the organising group agree with, but it’s important that everyone who couldn’t go gets a chance to have their say too. We must let everyone’s voice be heard.

Organisation

We need a wider organisation for other issues as they come up – we’re proposing “Australian Internet Lobby” as a name for that.

We will keep “Stop Internet Censorship” as name for the campaign – this is clearer than “No Clean Feed” or “Open Internet”.

Great Australian Internet Blackout during week 25-29 January 2010

The New Zealand Blackout campaign (against a planned law saying you could have your internet cut off if you were accused of illegal Internet filesharing) was a big success and reached the mainstream media there.

Anything we do with people who agree with us has to be based on going beyond online services like Twitter and talking to people who don’t already agree with us and trying to win them to our point of view.

On the Saturday before that week (Sat Jan 23rd) we will be planning to do roadside stalls in the suburbs promoting our campaign, talking to ordinary people.

Australia Day, January 26th

Protests and rallies have been proposed. We prefer the idea of an informal BBQ which won’t be as confronting. We’re planning to have this at Orleigh Park in West End. It will also be a way for us to get our own supporters motivated.

Main purpose of Australia Day BBQ (and rally we plan to hold in mid-Feb) is to build up our own supporters and set them up to go and meet with others and try to convince them to oppose censorship

General Strategy Discussion:

Two important points that came out of this article by “Liberal hack” Tim Andrews are that we should talk about how this is a Nanny State plan, and also about the taxes it will cost and the costs it will impose on business.

Some of the things discussed included:

• We need to work out what our single key issues are
• We need powerful ideas to convince others to our point of view
• How are we going to make sure ideas in the meeting don’t disappear?
• Specifics on a media/communications strategy

We also need people to:

1. Spread the word about our meetings and events – watch our Facebook group and/or this blog for details
2. Edit the Wiki with campaign ideas
3. Create content for the campaign

If you couldn’t make the meeting please let us know if you have any ideas or want to help out – just leave us a comment.

Just a quick reminder that we have a meeting on Monday, January 4th to plan the next stage of the anti-Net censorship campaign. If you’re on Facebook, the FB event is here.

We’ll be talking about planning a BBQ for Australia Day for people to chat about Net censorship and bring a friend, and we’ll also be planning a larger rally of our supporters in mid-February which will set people up to go out and discuss this issue with people who don’t already agree with us.

If you have anything you’d like to mention and you can’t be at the meeting, leave a comment here.

The meeting is in the Community Meeting Room in the Brisbane Square Library on the corner of George and Adelaide Streets in Brisbane City – click here for a Google Map.

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.

A quick reminder that the Brisbane Anti Internet Censorship meeting is TONIGHT. If you are not sure where to come, then check out these excellent flyers. Developed by the wonderful David Jackmanson.

I’m sure some of you are confused by the venue changes we have had over the last 24 hours for the Brisbane Anti Internet Censorship meeting. Unfortunately (but not sadly) interest in this event FAR FAR EXCEEDED my humble expectations.

We have now secured the use of Room Z-205 at QUT Gardens Point campus (map below). The room will open at 7:15pm with the meeting to begin at 7:30pm.

View full details including a Public Transport guide

Please let all your friends know of the venue change. The Facebook event has been updated to include the new details. We really look forward to seeing you there.