Facebook has also been criticized for its failure last month to stop the spread of videos of an anti-Muslim massacre in New Zealand, which has spurred calls for content regulation. It’s also been accused by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development of enabling bias in housing ads.

“Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t get to make the rules anymore," tweeted Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island who chairs the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, in response to Zuckerberg’s blog post and Washington Post opinion piece.

“Facebook is under criminal and civil investigation. It has shown it cannot regulate itself. Does anyone even want his advice?"

Nick Clegg, Facebook’s head of global affairs, told Bloomberg in an interview Sunday that regulators around the world should agree on common standards to avoid a patchwork of regulations that can create a compliance minefield for international companies.

“There’s good regulation and there’s bad regulation,” said Clegg, a former U.K. deputy prime minister. “There’s sensible regulation and there’s unwelcome regulation.”

Last year, Facebook was fined 500,000 pounds ($645,000 at the time) by the U.K. privacy regulator in what was then the maximum penalty for “serious" violations of data protection rules. U.K. Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said Monday she expected the company "to review their current appeal” against the penalty, in light of Zuckerberg’s statement.

Some saw Zuckerberg’s effort as a ploy to punt the company’s problems to the government and get out from under incessant bad publicity.

“They would very much like for people to stop being mad at them, and they’re willing to sacrifice any principle and make any compromise to make that happen,” said Jesse Blumenthal, who leads technology and innovation policy for the libertarian Koch network.

Blumenthal suggested Facebook was looking for a win-win. The company was inviting "a large and complicated regulatory regime" that would mollify angry policy-makers, but ultimately protect the company’s market position by overwhelming upstart competitors, he said.

Brendan Carr, a Republican commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, tweeted that he was a “no" on Zuckerberg’s plan. "Outsourcing censorship to the government is not just a bad idea, it would violate the First Amendment," Carr said.