Comment by Aachen

> Anyone can join these channels.

Doesn't mean that the server operators could. Think Mega (the new version of MegaUpload): they have these hash/fragment parts in the URL which aren't sent to the server and so you can send links around but Mega can claim they can't read anything because nobody gave them the "join" link to the data they host

But that's not what Telegram does and so they might reasonably have to implement automatic scans if there are an oddly high number of crimes being coordinated on the platform. (Sarcasm coming up:) It's really strange this would happen after they said it's for privacy nerds and then never implemented encryption for any of the useful/standard features