Loss of revenue from cancellation is due to decreased platform access and not to a fall in popularity

Via Marginal Revolution.  From the Abstract of Separating the Artist from the Art: Social Media Boycotts, Platform Sanctions, and Music Consumption by Daniel Winkler, Nils Wlömert and Jura Liaukonyte.

This paper investigates how the consumption of an artist's creative work is impacted when there's a movement to "cancel" the artist on social media due to their misconduct. Unlike product brands, human brands are particularly vulnerable to reputation risks, yet how misconduct affects their consumption remains poorly understood. Using R. Kelly's case, we examine the demand for his music following interrelated publicity and platform sanction shocks-specifically, the removal of his songs from major playlists on the largest global streaming platform. A cursory examination of music consumption after these scandals would lead to the erroneous conclusion that consumers are intentionally boycotting the disgraced artist. We propose an identification strategy to disentangle platform curation and intentional listening effects, leveraging variation in song removal status and geographic demand. Our findings show that the decrease in music consumption is primarily driven by supply-side factors due to playlist removals rather than changes in intentional listening. Media coverage and calls for boycott have promotional effects, suggesting that social media boycotts can inadvertently increase music demand. The analysis of other cancellation cases involving Morgan Wallen and Rammstein shows no long-term decline in music demand, reinforcing the potential promotional effects of scandals in the absence of supply-side sanctions.

The tweet stream is more succinct.  My concatenation:

Does 'canceling' an artist on social media affect their music consumption? Daniel Winkler, @roamer_09, and I explore this in our new paper.

Spoiler: The answer is more complicated than you think.

Let’s start with R. Kelly (remember 'I Believe I Can Fly'?). Comparing his streams to similar artists, we see a clear drop. Is this a consumer-led boycott, or did his music just become less visible due to a supply-side effect?

We utilize a natural experiment: Spotify's policy to sanction R. Kelly by removing his songs from playlists and algorithmic recommendations. Spotify later received pushback and reversed the policy—but didn’t reinstate his tracks.

Why is this natural experiment helpful? We have 2 cancellation efforts–one with platform action and one without. This allows us to separate supply-side from demand-side changes and ask: Would consumer-led boycotts have impacted music consumption without platform intervention?

We show that R. Kelly’s decline was mainly driven by Spotify’s sanctions, not an active consumer boycott. The drop was even steeper for ad-supported streams, showing the critical role of playlist visibility, especially when consumer listening experience is less deliberate

6 months later, after the documentary "Surviving R. Kelly," his streams surged by over 100%. Despite increased #MuteRKelly boycott activity, the documentary sparked increased interest in his songs for 3 weeks. Are these new listeners or existing fans?

The spike in streams was most pronounced in regions where R. Kelly was already popular, suggesting that likely existing fans revisited his music rather than new listeners checking him out for the first time.

Other cancellation cases, like those of Morgan Wallen and Rammstein, show that when platforms did not intervene, calls for cancellation did not harm music consumption—in fact, they can do the opposite.

It’s platform decisions, not consumer actions, that made the real impact.

An awful lot of caveats but interesting none-the-less.  

I would love to see NGOs and advocacy groups held legally accountable for the illegal tortious interference and this research, should it hold up, would provide the foundation for such suits.