Forums are too small of an audience to be even considered by most people, including political leaders considering such regulation, who consider Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit to be the only websites with UGC, and it's difficult to explain that distinction to folks, in my personal experience.
As mentioned, "forum" here doesn't mean 'software website running on vbulletin' as we normally refer to a web forum, it's more like the "open forum of ideas" concept.
dang can ban me, remove this comment, hide it, etc, but in no way will he or hackernews be legally liable if someone sees it; I am.
If 230 were not there, then there could be legal liability and the protection against it would be positive moderation or none at all perhaps. Positive moderation meaning dang would have to read and approve each post because HN would be taking on the liability of said post. Simply not scalable.
Well, it's not just HN and a bunch of vbulletin boards. Every subreddit, every facebook group, every discord server is the kind of forum that section 230 protects. In fact, even if you block people on twitter you are arguably turning the replies to your tweets into a moderated forum. Should that make you liable for them?
