In this era there is one thing we can be sure of and that is that the corruption level grows

and spreads in areas where public accountability is low.

In Romanias case the question is how can technology facilitate public accountability and
better governance? The overusage of the social media is undenyable, especially amongst young
people therefor being the perfect tool to raise awarness on the corruption issue.
For a very preliminary loo at the role of technology in influencing democracy after
e!amining how social networs, principally Faceboo, influence the perception of corruption
within countrie so we can say the main premise would be that societies with higher usage of
social networs are inherently more engaged and therefore are more liely to have lower
perceptions of corruption.
It is rather clear that Faceboo significantly influences the perception of corruption in a
given country. The perception of corruption is liely reduced due to multiple factors including
the more rapid transmission of information and increased communications between citi"ens and
their government.
The preliminary evidence indicating Faceboos role in the perception of corruption begs
the question of why? #re citi"ens actually more engaged in their societies or do they $ust feel
more engaged and does it actually matter? %hat is evident and what is possible to discuss is a
clear relationship between Faceboo and perceptions of corruption. &o the ne!t time you are
updating your Faceboo status or tweeting what you are doing and your boss sees you do it and
gives you a disapproving loo, simply turn around and say' ()ey, I am helping to reduce
national perceptions on corruption.*
The impact of Faceboo usage on corruption across countries. The idea was simple' In
any country with a large number of Faceboo users, news regarding graft can be spread easily
and quicly, and at virtually "ero cost.
+ur findings did, indeed, reveal a negative correlation between Faceboo usage and
corruption. &imple regression analysis further confirmed that higher Faceboo usage is
associated with lower levels of corruption.
To mae our findings robust, we added additional variables such as education, age, and
income levels for each country to the regression, so that we would be comparing apples to apples
and not apples to oranges.
That, however, is still not cause enough to dismiss the role of social media in lowering
corruption ,thin -hinese micro.bloggers/ their impact on the governments operations may not
be small01. It could $ust be that the number of Faceboo users is not yet large enough in all
countries to have a significant impact. #lso, there may not be enough people speaing 2nglish
,Faceboos lingua franca1 or having Internet access at all.
3ut more than all these, the real reason for social media not maing the e!pected dent on
corruption could be that, as a phenomenon, it is different from mass protests. -orruption creates
a different type of interaction 4 or lac of it 4 that, in turn, affects its spread on social media.
5rotests need only a few leaders to initiate the process and social media can then quicly
spread the message. Further, event pages can be created anonymously on Faceboo.
6raft, on the other hand, is not simply about large scams. 7uch of it actually is of a petty
and retail nature, though massive at an aggregate level.
5etty corruption occurs when one individual has regulatory authority over another. In
these situations, most people will not report graft activities on social media sites, since both the
bribe giver and the taer are deemed guilty. Reporting will not happen in the absence of
substantial anonymity or privacy.
%hile social media can help educate people about corruption and how to fight it, it will
not have a substantial impact without an effective law protecting whistleblowers.