Lots of Silicon Valleys biggest companies assume there are new regulations coming and are working with regulators to get the rules they think will help themselves. They dont have to love the rules, as long as the rules give them a clear framework that spells out what theyre responsible for and what they dont need to do.
An obvious example, reiterated by Zuckerberg in his op-ed: Getting more countries to adopt the European Unions General Data Protection Regulation. But they know how to work with GDPR, and they would rather have a consistent set of laws to follow instead of a patchwork of country-by-country laws.
In the US, for instance, Silicon Valley leaders expect individual states to enact their own regulations around internet privacy and other issues, and assume those rules will prompt the federal government to eventually create its own nationwide rules which is what Silicon Valley would prefer.
Regardless of how practical it is, Facebooks impulse to ask people who dont run Facebook for help running Facebook looks like the new normal for Facebook.
Facebook along with all of the other Silicon Valley companies that depend on individual users for content or inventory has always asked other people to police their platforms. If someone uploads a video or song you own onto the site, its up to you to tell Facebook to take it down. And if you think that Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a nude Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack shouldnt be on the site, you should tell Facebook that, too.