@avlcharlie It's not a special law for social media. It protects all interactive computer services and their users. That includes video games, websites, blogs, map websites, traditional media, and even operating systems.

The reason those older business models didn't need a S230 of their own was because there was usually someone to hold responsible. You couldn't hold the bookstore responsible, but you could hold the publisher responsible, etc.
But the internet changed everything... it democratized speech and made it so anyone could self-publish, not just who the rich people thought were good enough. And, more importantly, they could do so anonymously. When the aggrieved rich wolf of wall street assholes called their lawyers to complain about someone bad-mouthing them, they couldn't identify the speaker, and there was no publisher to go after... so they went after the distributor of the speech... which created a terrible precedent, essentially saying that every website, including the family-friendly defendant, had to allow every racist troll, every boner pill spambot, and all porn on their platform, or else they became liable for the content of the users on their forum and the wolf of wall street could successfully sue them.

This was recognized as such an affront to justice that both political parties quickly rallied together and passed the bipartisan Section 230 to prevent it from happening again.

The premise is simple, and common sense: You should be able to set the tone in your own house, but that doesn't make you liable for the conduct of your guests.