A channel that incites violence is against the law (in some countries). A channel selling drugs is against the law. These are few examples. I do not how the specific details of the French case to comment on the specifics. I could believe the arrest is poorly justified, but I have reasonably belief in their justice system.
A channel doesn’t do that though. People do that. If I take a megaphone to the street corner and start selling drugs, are you really going to arrest the megaphone I used?
Weird parallel. If you're on the street it's easier to arrest you.
Now if your megaphone is used exclusively to sell drugs and for some reason you cannot be arrested, then it makes sense to confiscate it?
You're in your house using a walkie talkie connected to a megaphone placed in the streets, and you're yelling that you sell drugs. Should the police leave the megaphone/walkie talkie untouched because "it's just an object, it's not the megaphone selling drugs?" Or should they remove it, and try to find you?
> How does an inanimate object incite violence or sell drugs?
Please stop being so (seemingly-intentionally) obtuse about this. Certainly the participants of the channel are the ones who incite violence or sell drugs. But some laws also make it illegal to "host" the people who do those sorts of things. A Telegram channel can host these people.
> If France can't access these channels, how do they know the violence or drugs are actually occurring _in_ France?
They can access those channels.
> And if they could know that, what does Telegram have to do with it?
Telegram is hosting the content, and apparently under French law, the host can also be liable.
> Wouldn't they just be able to go and arrest the violent person or the drug dealer?
Not if they don't know where the people are, because Telegram hides their real identities and locations.
I'm not being obtuse, I'm exceptionally uncomfortable with someone rather blithely saying a "channel is against the law." I'm probing the depths of that. I'm sorry if this is somehow inconvenient to you but I have no intention of altering my behavior and I find it rude that you would even ask in such a way.
> A Telegram channel can host these people.
Is this the majority of users? Is Telegram intentionally marketing it's services to these users? Does it do internal research to be more appealing to this use case?
> They can access those channels.
So Telegram is not intentionally hiding them from the government or preventing their discovery and infiltration by law enforcement? Then why arrest the CEO?
> and apparently under French law, the host can also be liable.
If you're comfortable saying "well, it's legal in France" then what do you hope to gain from further discussion with someone you believe is going to be intentionally obtuse?
> because Telegram hides their real identities and locations.
They are buying drugs? Doesn't this require two people to meet up and physically exchange goods and money? What good does outlawing the channel do?
It's not so much obtuseness as different assumptions about what is "normal" law: most young American computer-science trained programmers probably believe that ISPs or even Pirate Bay websites are not responsible for online crimes such as piracy, the authorities should go after the distributors of pirated material, and so this event does not fit the prior mental schema. It's a difference due to values, expectations, context having to do with how we reason about technology and in large part this depends on one's background technical culture, which varies depending on country as well as the type of university of study, exposure to Silicon Valley attitudes, etc.
