Well, @esglaude, since you ask. .... I will start by highly recommending @jkosseff's The Twenty-Six Words that Created the Internet; it is excellent history and explanation. Here is summary: 1/

It is #230 that enables the public conversation on the net. In perhaps Congress' last wise move, it recognized that if platforms & publishers were held liable for the public's conversation on the net, they would not host it and we'd be left with nothing but mass media online. 2/

As the legislation's authors put it, #230 offers hosts of conversation a shield and a sword. First, the shield: Before #230, case law perversely had it that if you moderated contributions and missed something you were more liable than if you didn't try to moderate at all. 3/