A bunch of powerful people feel some stuff should be punished, but they can’t make it illegal. So they’ll stay in good term with de facto gate keepers and nudge them in their direction.
In the article it’s some billionaire, but ruling parties are probably doing the same extensively: instead of making the controversial decisions themselves, go through all the paperwork and get all the backlash, they’ll have a private entity deal with 95% of the problem (the industry “self-regulating”) and call it a day.
A pettier exemple than money transactions: there’s no reason smartphones shouldn’t be able to record calls out of the box (using it within legal boundaries should be on the user) but phone makers will self-block that behavior with no specific interest on their side.