Does social media reduce corruption?

- We study the relationship between social media (proxied by Facebook penetration) and corruption using data for over 150 countries.
- We find that there is a strong, negative correlation between Facebook penetration and corruption.
- We show that the relationship between Facebook penetration and corruption is strongest for the set of countries with low press freedom.
- Our results indicate that social media plays a complementary role to press freedom in regards to their association with corruption.

In this paper we study the relationship between multi-way means of communication and corruption by exploring the link between social media and corruption. Using a cross-country analysis of over 150 countries, we document a robust and statistically significant negative relationship between Facebook penetration (a proxy for social media) and corruption. A falsification test for the relationship between Facebook penetration and corruption is also reported. We find that the relationship between Facebook penetration and corruption is strongest for the set of countries with low press freedom. Moreover, we find that social media is complementary to press freedom in regards to its association with corruption Finally, our findings also confirm the negative correlation between internet penetration and corruption.