> 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.
