The quote is from this topic Discourse Trust Levels: A Detailed Explanation
I think it’s a translation error. Have you tried reading the English original?
You can also check the French descriptions of the site settings at /admin/site_settings/category/all_results?filter=tl1%20requires. Those are not translated by ai as the posts here on Meta (although that’s no guarantee that they’re more accurate - feel free to let me know if they are not, so I can add a comment on the translation platform for someone to improve them).
TL1 is all about reading: how many topics you enter/open, how many replies you read, and how much time you spend reading.