Stalker states: Are democracies more likely to snoop on citizens’ data on Facebook?

Conventionally, surveillance as a governance apparatus is associated with authoritarian states and frowned upon as anathema to liberal democracy. This article argues that, contrary to common notion, democracies are actually more likely to solicit user data from social media repositories in the guise of protecting national security or facilitating legal processes. Government requests of social media user data allow states to circumvent constitutionally and statutorily guaranteed protection against citizen surveillance. Drawing from an econometric analysis of Facebook data requests made by governments in 176 countries from 2013 to 2023, we provide evidence of propensity by democracies to request user data compared to their authoritarian and hybrid counterparts. Although governments sometimes make requests for private data as part of legal processes and in aid of official investigations, we find that a significant portion of these requests are made in the pretext of emergencies and, thus, lack legal warrants. Overall, the findings lend credence to looming concern over how social media data are exploited in the name of national security, and point to the need for greater transparency and accountability from government.