# Governance on Social Media Data: Different Focuses between Government and Internet Company

## TL;DR

This paper analyzes how economic, political, and social factors influence government requests for Facebook user data and Facebook's response rates, revealing differing focuses between governments and the platform.

## Contribution

It provides an empirical analysis of the relationship between country-level factors and social media data governance by governments and Facebook.

## Key findings

- Higher GDP per capita correlates with more data requests.
- Countries with more human freedom send more requests and receive more responses.
- Facebook responds more to requests from countries with higher human freedom and lower political stability.

## Abstract

How governments and Internet companies regulate user data on social media attracts public attention. This study tried to answer two questions: What kind of countries send more requests for Facebook user data? What kind of countries get more requests replies from Facebook? We aim to figure out how a country's economic, political and social factors affect its government requests for user data and Facebook's responses rate to those requests. Results show that countries with higher GDP per capita, a higher level of human freedom and a lower level of rule of law send more requests for user data; while Facebook tends to reply to government requests from countries with a higher level of human freedom and a lower level of political stability. In conclusion, governments and Facebook show different focuses on governance on social media data.

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1904.11242