Belarus IGF 2023 — the 5th Belarus Internet Governance Forum — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

After a three-year silence, the fifth Belarus IGF reconvened in Minsk on 15 November 2023 with a record 500-plus participants from government, business, international organisations, NGOs, academia and the technical community.
Under the theme 'The Internet We Want', five tracks covered internet trends, false-agenda formation in media and social networks, digital literacy as the foundation of information security, cyber threats, and personal data protection.
Read against the Steering Committee's 2020 declaration that a safe and ethical forum was impossible, this restart — with ICANN and RIPE NCC executives on stage — was a revival, but a changed one.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on Belarus IGF 2023 — the 5th Belarus Internet Governance Forum 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)

Item	Detail
Official name	Belarus IGF 2023 — the 5th Belarus Internet Governance Forum
Edition	Fifth edition — the restart after the 2020–2022 three-year hiatus
Dates	15 November 2023
Venue	Minsk (specific venue not named in verified sources)
Theme	'The Internet We Want' (Интернет, который мы хотим)
Participants	Over 500 participants — a record
Host	hoster.by, the largest registrar of .by and .бел domains

(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. Restart after the Hiatus — a Record 500 for the Fifth Edition

Sessions: Overall programme, 15 November 2023

"The uniqueness of the IGF is its openness: anyone can propose a discussion topic, participate in the forum, and contribute to the development"
— Sergey Povalishev, CEO of hoster.by [1][3]

The official UN IGF news names it 'The fifth Internet Governance Forum Belarus IGF-2023 … held on November 15', carrying the count straight on from 2019's fourth edition and officially confirming the 2020–2022 gap [1][3]
Turnout topped 500 — a record — with first deputy ministers of information (Kuntsevich) and communications (Tkach), OAC deputy head Zhernosek, ICANN's Mikhail Anisimov and RIPE NCC's Vahan Hovsepyan on stage [1][3]

2. Why the Silence — the Logic of the 2020 Open Letter

Sessions: Context: the Steering Committee's open letter of 1 September 2020

"Taking into consideration the situation in Belarus after the presidential elections on August 9, we do not consider the IGF organizing to be safe, effective and ethical"
— Belarus IGF Steering Committee (2020 open letter) [4]

The letter cited four grounds: the impossibility of the multistakeholder principle (government refusing dialogue with civil society); the three-day nationwide internet shutdown after the election and the risk of repeats; mass blocking of independent media, rights groups and VPNs; and mass detentions [4]
Calling the Belarus IGF one of Eastern Europe's most significant dialogue platforms, it hoped to reconvene 'in a free, peaceful and technological Belarus' the next year — the restart took three [4]
Measuring the 2023 line-up — heavy on deputy ministers and state-linked bodies — against the letter's own standards is essential to reading the revival [4]

3. False Agendas and Digital Literacy — the Revival's Core Themes

Sessions: Tracks on disinformation, literacy and cybersecurity

The five tracks: internet trends, problems and opportunities; the formation of false agendas in media and social networks; digital literacy as the foundation of information security; cyber threats and personal protection; and data-protection practice [1][3][2]
Local coverage summed up the 2023 focus as the information agenda and cybersecurity; the forum stayed free and open to register [1][3][2]
The 'false agendas' frame sits where the international counter-disinformation vocabulary overlaps with that of state information control — an ambiguity worth noting in Belarus's political context [1][3][2]

4. Data Protection in Practice — the New DPA at the Table

Sessions: Personal data protection session

Seven experts covered operators' typical mistakes, internal data-handling processes, cross-border transfers and the DPO's role [2]
Speakers spanned hoster.by, the National Personal Data Protection Centre (CPD), law firms SP&P and Sorainen, e-commerce major Ozon, PATIO and Alfa-Bank — and the CPD, the young authority enforcing the 2021 data-protection law, published its own post-event report [2]
The session showed the country's data-protection regime plugging into a practitioner community — a distinctly post-restart feature [2]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. What kind of meeting was this?

A. Belarus's national IGF, back after three years: a record 500-plus in Minsk debating 'The Internet We Want' — disinformation, digital literacy, cyber threats and data protection.

Q. Why the three-year gap?

A. After the 2020 election came shutdowns and mass detentions, and the Steering Committee publicly declared a safe, ethical forum impossible. The 2023 revival happened within that reality, and its changed cast invites scrutiny.

Q. Why should I care?

A. It is a rare live case of a multistakeholder forum dying in a political crisis and returning transformed — and a reminder that 'countering false agendas' can shade into information control depending on who convenes the room.

What Is Belarus IGF? (for first-time readers)

Belarus IGF 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 2023 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.