I'm afraid Mr. Duncan is taking McConnell too seriously. All of this is stagecraft, not statecraft.

To the extent that McConnell has any principles at all, he is a first-amendment absolutist. He has no intention of killing off section 230. He just wants to make Democrats vote against the $2000 bill so that Republican candidates can SAY that their party proposed legislation to provide it, and the Dems killed it. There is absolutely no substantive intent in the bill. It is ad-fodder, nothing more.

FWIW, the $2,000 is a terrible idea. The pandemic has been hard on everyone, but ti has not been hard on pensioners, including social security recipients, with modest income from a mixed portfolio of stocks and bonds. Those who are struggling are unemployed people and those who make their money selling to employed people, including people in the restaurant business and landlords. If the employees receive enhanced unemployment benefits, they can pay their rent, so that leaves the restaurateurs - the whole entertainment industry, really - with a hole that the relief bill should plug. But giving everyone who isn't rich a one-time check? Nah. That makes no sense.

Section 230 does need some work. IMHO, unless a platform makes all of its money via delivery charges (like the post office or UPS), it's a publisher and should have to look to Times v. Sullivan for liability protection. Publishers are eyeball brokers. They make their money by finding readers for content and/or ads attached to the content. They should be liable for their content. Delivery services make their money delivering content to recipients identified by the content-provider. They provide no market-finding function and so should not be responsible for the messages they deliver (and do not even have to see).