This is an odd statement I'm having trouble following on basically every level.

1. the article clearly states the FBI did not specifically mention the Biden story.

2. It's odd to then claim they followed the FBI's suggestion to "buy good will" on other fronts. (Unclear how FBI goodwill would help, if your statement about Facebook "fearing regulation the most" is true).

3. Regardless, the FBI is part of the executive branch - it does not prosecute nor regulate. On a related point, the FBI is alleged (not necessarily proven) to be right/conservative-leaning. So it's a strange suggestion the FBI were trying to somehow pressure Facebook to censor anti-Biden media, at least based on what we know about the agency. It could be true, but would require some backing evidence as the FBI is "supposed" to be apolitical, but if anything it has been criticized for leaning conservative.

4. You single out "Companies like Facebook" as the issue, but the article states the Washington Post and New York Times actually tried to imply the New York Post article and emails were false (only to later acknowledge "some" emails were authentic).

It's not clear to me that social media restricting an article is the primary issue, vs. prominent news outlets which are trusted as a primary source by millions of voters, claiming an article was disinformation, only later to actually perform an investigation and acknowledge it was true.

Both things of course are highly problematic. But it seems reasonable to assume if the major news outlets didn't claim the story was disinformation, it would've been less likely to have been incorrectly censored as disinformation by social media platforms who were warned by the FBI about Russian disinformation.

I wasn't referring to this specific case, but rather the mentality of big multinational companies when it comes to government interactions.

I've been in the C-suite when concerns about government regulation have been discussed. You "play ball" on some things in order to avoid other, worse things happening.

I have no idea if Zuckerberg made this trade-off.

I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised in the least if that was the strategy.

It's not like Facebook wasn't already in the hot seat when it came to Congress.