Everyone and their grandmother (literally) uses proxies and VPNs in Iran. Telegram is also banned and censored, yet it remains the most popular messaging/social network in Iran.
yeah, interesting tidbit about Iran and telegram is that russian telegram channels who monetize themselves with ads can easily buy tens of 10k's of fake iran followers to boost their 'social capital'. And since telegram does not allow to check the geolocation of channel followers, some channels are growing from like 3K followers to 100K overnight.
I don't know about the fake accounts. But (almost) every real person I know in Iran is on Telegram.
Yes, this surprises me too, since telegram accounts are tied to SIM cards, and my best guess was that it's not easy to get a bunch of SIM's in Iran. But for some reason, Iran bots are considered the cheapest ones out there...
Very easy to get SIM cards in Iran when I was there some months ago.