Another compelling explanation for the "patch" is government-mandated censorship. Iran's relationship with Telegram is fraught. The government has blocked the app since 2018, citing its use in organizing protests. However, this ban is leaky, and millions of Iranians continue to use Telegram via VPNs. The government has also attempted to negotiate terms with Telegram for its unblocking, demanding that the platform block posts inciting ethnic tensions and assist the judiciary with user data requests.

Security researchers have already reverse-engineered these fake APKs. They contain:

Content providers frequently update their DRM keys. Once a patch is applied to the hosting server, older versions of Zed TV distributed via Telegram lose the ability to decode the video streams, resulting in "Playback Error" or "Server Down" messages. 3. Telegram Channel Takedowns