The impact is huge. There are two schools of thought. Some say that censorship can stimulate creativity, because it forces people to find a way of circumventing it.
As we know, this is state censorship that clamps down in particular on the distribution of artistic creations. What is most egregious in the case of Iran, and what can have medium and long-term repercussions, is the self-censorship of artists, journalists, thinkers and intellectuals. As soon as censorship becomes completely internalized and people censor themselves unconsciously, it can do enormous damage, because it obviously impedes creative thinking.
Faced with considerable constraints, censorship and restrictions on freedom of expression and thought, Iranians stand out through their creative use of humour, parody and satire to circumvent all these obstacles. Iranian cinema uses an entire system of encoding and decoding that really sets it apart. That artistic creativity should be commended, since it is partly a reaction to the many constraints imposed on the creation and distribution of works of art.