Internet, Censorship, and Corruption. The impact of online censorship on the internet’s potential to reduce corruption

Abstract

Since the advent of the internet, the world has witnessed the explosive growth and development of technologies that provide us with ever-increasing means of accessing information and connecting with one another. This technology is now available in most nations across the world and is used by more than 40% of the world’s population. How does this technology impact our society? Recent evidence suggests that this technology can help in the fight against corruption. But how it does that and what factors limit this potential deserve further investigation. In particular, little is understood about how censorship online impacts this potential. Approached quantitatively using a cross-sectional multiple regression analysis, this study attempts to contribute to that discussion, examining how the effect of internet use on corruption is impacted by government censorship online. This investigation is conducted globally on the country level, measuring how internet cen-sorship interacts with the effect of internet use on several corruption indicators. Furthermore, the study looks at how this interaction affects both grand and petty corruption. The findings support the hypotheses that increased internet use is related to lower levels of corrup-tion, but in societies with high levels of online censorship increased use is instead related to higher levels of corruption. Furthermore, while this relationship seems to exist for grand corruption at the executive and legislative levels of government, this relationship is less clear for petty corruption, particularly at the administrative level of government. Keywords: internet, censorship, corruption, press freedom, horizontal communication, social openness