LACIGF 2018 Buenos Aires — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

1. The 11th Latin America and Caribbean IGF (LACIGF 11) met at the Hotel Scala in Buenos Aires on 31 July – 2 August 2018, run by an Argentine multistakeholder group led by NIC Argentina, with ten sessions.
2. Algorithmic decision-making and inequality, disinformation and free expression, community networks, data protection and the IPv6 transition led the agenda; ISOC and UNESCO keynotes tackled the global IGF's future and risks to democracy.
3. The edition modernised the forum — civil society voted on session topics and a break-out format debuted — and its disinformation-and-algorithms debate foreshadowed platform-regulation fights worldwide.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on LACIGF 2018 in Buenos Aires draws on official outputs, session records and on-site reporting. In a hurry? The three lines above and the diagrams carry the gist.

Conference at a Glance (from official records)

(See the source list at the end of this article.)

Discussion Digest — from the Session Records

Key exchanges extracted from session records and transcripts.

1. Algorithms and Inequality — The Shadow of Automated Decision-Making

Sessions: Session on the challenges and opportunities of algorithmic decision-making (selected by public vote)

• Panels confronted the risk that automated, algorithmic decision-making would deepen the region's existing inequalities [2][6]
• The topic reached the agenda through a civil-society vote — the first time participants directly chose a session topic [2][6]

2. Disinformation and Free Expression — Alarm over Polarised Democracies

Sessions: Keynote by Guilherme Canela (UNESCO) on polarised pluralism online and risks for Latin American democracies, and related sessions

"I think what most worries stakeholders is the perception that not much can be done on the internet to regulate undesirable situations"
— Javier Pallero (Access Now), as quoted (in Spanish) in Revista Fibra's coverage of the meeting [7][2]

• With Brazil's presidential election looming, disinformation campaigns and their threat to free expression and democracy took centre stage [7][2]
• Civil society groups also presented surveillance reports from Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and Paraguay, flagging both state and private monitoring [7][2]

3. Community Networks and Gender — Toward a Feminist Internet

Sessions: Community-network sessions; 2nd LACIGFem and FemHack Party (1 August)

• Sessions examined the technical, regulatory and sustainability challenges of community networks connecting areas big operators do not reach [5][2]
• APC-led LACIGFem and a FemHack Party ran alongside, addressing the gender gap and putting the Feminist Principles of the Internet into practice [5][2]

4. Host Argentina and Forum Reform — National-IGF Synergy and the First Break-outs

Sessions: 3rd IGF Argentina (30 July); Session 7 on the management of internet identifiers

• The 3rd IGF Argentina ran the day before the regional meeting, testing the synergy of back-to-back national and regional forums [7][6]
• A break-out small-group format debuted in the identifiers session, breaking the panel monoculture, and the organising committee rotated its civil-society seat from ADC to IPANDETEC [7][6]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. What did the meeting decide?

A. Nothing binding. It distilled the region's priorities and carried them as a collective voice into the global IGF in Paris that November.

Q. What was the hottest topic?

A. Disinformation and algorithms. With Brazil's presidential election weeks away, the sense that coordinated falsehoods and opaque algorithms could warp democracy dominated the corridors.

Q. Why should I care?

A. The disinformation and algorithmic-transparency debates prefigured platform-regulation fights now under way worldwide, and the forum's reforms — participant-voted agendas, break-out discussions — are a playbook for any IGF.

What Is LACIGF? (for first-time readers)

LACIGF is a National or Regional IGF Initiative (NRI), aligning local internet governance discussion with global IGF principles.

Why It Matters to You

What was discussed here becomes the baseline for national digital policy, platform rules and AI regulation worldwide within a few years. The principles confirmed at the 2018 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.

Sources & References

1. Foros anteriores（歴代開催一覧） — LACIGF（公式サイト） (accessed 2026-07-10)
2. LACIGF 11（セッション一覧・基調講演・記録） — LACIGF（公式アーカイブ） (accessed 2026-07-10)
3. El LACIGF 11 se realizará en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires（スペイン語） — NIC Argentina (accessed 2026-07-10)
4. El 31 de julio comienza en Buenos Aires el LACIGF11（スペイン語） — NIC Argentina (accessed 2026-07-10)
5. APC en el Foro de Gobernanza de Internet América Latina y el Caribe 2018（スペイン語） — APC（進歩的コミュニケーション協会） (accessed 2026-07-10)
6. LACIGF 11: cambios, retos pendientes y futuro de la gobernanza multistakeholder（スペイン語） — Hiperderecho（ペルー） (accessed 2026-07-10)
7. La gobernanza de Internet, un debate permanente（スペイン語） — Revista Fibra（アルゼンチン） (accessed 2026-07-10)
8. Ediciones anteriores — Youth LACIGF — Youth LACIGF (accessed 2026-07-10)

Quotes are translated or condensed from the records listed above. Bracketed numbers [n] refer to the source list.

Related links

• IGF official (NRI list): https://www.intgovforum.org/en/content/national-and-regional-igf-initiatives
• Japan IGF: https://japanigf.jp/
• Yuki Nakazawa's blog: https://nkzw.jp/category/igf/

Revision History

Rev. 1 — published 6 August 2018, 09:00 (Article published)

Rev. 2 — updated 10 July 2026, 23:16 (Fully revised into the in-depth edition: added the 3-line summary, minutes digest, short talk, source list and diagrams (all quotes verified against the listed sources))

— 中澤祐樹