NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - Facebook has a pressing challenge: to deflect political fury. To that end, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg has laid out the reasons why the social network is on the right side of history, in what amounts to a four-pronged defense. It’s not watertight, but it may just hold up. The $730 billion giant has been a political football for its role in amplifying extremism. The fight against bad actors reached a boiling point when it banned President Donald Trump for inciting a mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Speaking at a Reuters Next conference on Monday, Sandberg set out an agenda for a more constructive Facebook. The headline message is that no person is too powerful to avoid the boot. Barring the president gives some weight to that – though for weeks the network, and others like it, were teeming with content relating to the storming of the U.S. government. The second prong is that hateful content is only a tiny part of Facebook’s universe – just 0.1% of views according to the company’s own survey – and that it is actively trying to remove it. That’s small, but enough to do real damage when it inspires actual violence. Where the network is on more solid ground is its business. Sandberg described Facebook as “a lifeline” for small businesses in desperate need of support during the pandemic. That’s overcooking it, but it’s true that many companies have been kept alive through migrating their businesses online. Finally, the company says it’s also good to its employees, allowing for remote work and Covid-19 related benefits like time off. Who’s the real audience for this? It’s not Facebook’s some 3 billion users, who are unlikely to follow Trump off the platform in large numbers. Instead it’s politicians who are debating whether to rein in the company, for example its ability to acquire other businesses. Regulators could, at worst, break up Mark Zuckerberg’s empire. And Big Tech may lose some online liability protections that have been in place for more than two decades. There’s a good chance the pitch will work. Congress is still divided, and other pressing matters like Covid-19 relief will use up more bandwidth. Most importantly, Trump’s forced departure from the platform will take some of the attention and controversy away too. Facebook’s defense may have bought it some more time.