Interneti Päev 2024 (Estonia’s Internet Day) — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

On 10 April 2024 Interneti Päev convened at PoCo Lab, a freshly opened culture-and-technology venue in Tallinn's Rotermann quarter, under the slogan 'Is this the internet we wanted?'.
Ahead of the European Parliament elections the day examined data-driven voter manipulation — with Cambridge Analytica as the case study — asked who still commands trust on an oversaturated internet and whether it is time to move towards decentralisation, and closed with how AI could make everyone a winner, alongside reports from the foundation's youth cyber-education grants.
In the year generative AI and election disinformation dominated worldwide, Estonia's registry foundation took its citizens back to first principles; the 2024 edition is also logged in the UN's NRI annual-report records.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on Interneti Päev 2024 (Estonia's Internet Day) 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	Interneti Päev 2024 (Estonia's Internet Day)
Dates	10 April 2024
Venue	PoCo Lab, a culture-and-technology venue at Rotermanni 14 in Tallinn's Rotermann quarter
Theme	Slogan: 'Kas sellist interneti me tahtsimegi?' (Is this the internet we wanted?)
Host	Organised by the Estonian Internet Foundation (Eesti Interneti SA); programme curated by Karmen Turk, Linnar Viik, Henrik Roonemaa, Birgy Lorenz, Heiki Sibul, Mare Vahtre and the foundation's team

(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. Does Data Win Elections? — Influence Operations before the European Elections

Sessions: 'Data leads to election victory!?' (10:10–11:00; civic activist Tarmo Jüristo of the research group Salk and TLÜ participatory-culture professor Katrin Tiidenberg)

Cambridge Analytica's use of Facebook data to micro-target voters in the 2016 US election and the Brexit referendum served as the anatomy lesson in election influencing [1][2]
Speakers noted that organisations of various worldviews have deployed similar techniques in Estonia, and examined how anonymous voices move opinion in echo chambers — and how fear of cancellation weighs on debate [1][2]
The session doubled as voter education, with experts sharing practical advice on recognising manipulation ahead of the European Parliament elections [1][2]

2. Is This the Internet We Wanted? — Locating Trust, Weighing Decentralisation

Sessions: 'Is this the internet we wanted?' (11:10–12:00; TLÜ media-innovation professor Indrek Ibrus, Dreamgrow founder Priit Kallas and social-media editor Bärbel Moros)

With content oversaturated and its makers — AI, influencers, self-styled experts or scholars — indistinguishable, the panel asked who holds the credit of trust online and whether it can be restored [1][2]
Abrupt turns in the platforms' ownership and principles prompted the question of stepping back towards a decentralised internet — and whether that is realistic [1][2]
Who will shape the future of social media and the internet was the session that gave the year's slogan its edge [1][2]

3. World Champions with AI? — Launching the Digital Tiger onto the AI Wave

Sessions: 'To world champions with AI's help?' (12:30–13:20; TalTech IT dean Gert Jervan, Askly founder-CEO Sandra Roosna and Net Group AI lead Olari Tõnison)

Framing 2024 as 'the year with AI's face', the panel explored how ever-more-accessible AI personalises services and learning and helps solve personal and global problems [1][2]
What must be done so that everyone wins with AI — and can Estonia's 'digital tiger' ride the AI wave? A university dean, a startup CEO and a systems-integrator AI lead mapped the way [1][2]

4. Growing the Cyber-Talent Base — Reports from the Foundation's Youth Grants

Sessions: 'CyberTalents and the teachers who support them' (11:00–11:10; Birgy Lorenz, TalTech) and 'CyberTigers: girls' motivation and achievements in cyber education' (12:20–12:30; Iiris Tuvi, University of Tartu)

The foundation-funded 'CyberTalents' project reported cybersecurity training for youths and their teachers, the KüberPuuring competition, and top performers representing Estonia internationally [1][2]
Tartu's 'CyberTigers' studies what motivates girls to enter the cyber field — and which programmes, run by whom, work best [1][2]
A registry channelling revenue into talent grants and reporting the results at Internet Day is a distinctive sustainability model for a national-IGF-style event [1][2]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. What did this meeting decide?

A. Nothing binding — it was the 2024 edition of the .ee registry foundation's annual dialogue, asking 'Is this the internet we wanted?' across elections, trust and AI in half a day.

Q. What was the most contentious topic?

A. Data-driven voter manipulation. With Cambridge Analytica as the case study and similar methods observed in Estonia, experts coached citizens on spotting influence operations before the European elections.

Q. Why should I care?

A. AI-fuelled election disinformation became a live issue in democracies everywhere from 2024 on, and the question of retreating from platform dependence towards decentralisation confronts every online society.

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

Estonia 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 2024 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.