WASHINGTON — When Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook called for regulating harmful internet content in an opinion column last month, Republicans in Washington expressed outrage that he was calling on the government to regulate speech.

Within hours, the company’s top lobbyists started spreading another message to conservatives: Don’t take his suggestion too seriously.

In a flurry of calls and emails to regulators, consumer groups and think tanks — as well as in person, at a weekly breakfast gathering of influential conservatives — the operatives said Mr. Zuckerberg was not encouraging new limits on speech in the United States. His target was mostly overseas regulators, they said, and he has other ideas for Washington.

“Mark believes that by updating the rules for the internet, we can preserve what’s best about it — the freedom for people to express themselves and entrepreneurs to build new things,” one Facebook lobbyist wrote in an email widely distributed to conservative groups. The lobbyists’ actions were described by two people who encountered the outreach and shared the emails with The New York Times but would speak only on the condition of anonymity.