The government can be forcing Facebook's hand by making Facebook fearful of being investigated, fined, broken up, etc if they are found to have allowed manipulation of the 2020 election in any way, and the coronavirus and related topics have become unfortunately intertwined in that.

Huh? If any forcing is going on -- which there isn't -- they would presumably be forced to toe the Trump party line, not to suppress or censor it. Wouldn't the present Federal government be happy if Facebook were to encourage protests and general disrespect for warnings from health authorities? If anything, Facebook's actions here are courageous.

It takes a lot to get me to defend Facebook, but the arguments popping up in this thread are proving to be more than sufficient.

Well, the official Trump party line is indeed that social distancing and other restrictions are still necessary. This is a very confusing situation since the protesters against the protective measures seem to be almost exclusively from Trump's base.