This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: If the goal was to silence rapper Macklemore by preventing him from touring with singer Ed Sheeran, it clearly backfired. Macklemore delivered a monolog in support of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and performed his pro-Palestinian protest song "Hind's Hall" during a Sept. 4, 2026, concert at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where he was an opening act for Sheeran.
Ten days later, Macklemore was dropped from the tour after Robert Kraft, owner of the NFL's New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium—a future stop on Sheeran's "Loop" tour—thought the 43-year-old rapper had crossed a line. In a Sept. 14 Instagram post, Macklemore detailed how Kraft had pressured Sheeran to drop Macklemore from the tour and had convinced other stadium owners to prevent him from performing at their venues. Yet the ensuing media coverage sent the rapper's profile soaring.
There was little to no interest in Macklemore's Sept. 4 speech the day after he delivered it, yet searches for that speech shot up. His Instagram follower count ballooned by over 1.6 million in the days after he was dropped. Streams of his songs skyrocketed.
In an act of solidarity, all of Sheeran's other opening acts withdrew from the tour, and at least one radio network pulled Sheeran's music from its rotation. This pattern has a name: the Streisand effect. In 2003, singer Barbra Streisand tried to remove aerial photos of her home from the internet.
But her efforts to take down the images only drove more people to seek them out. Two decades later, the Streisand effect has become a kind of internet maxim: Trying to bury something often ends up amplifying it. Working with colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University and George Mason University, I wanted to explore how this phenomenon plays out—and whether it's simply internet folk wisdom or something that can be backed up with data.
To do so, we focused on one of the more contentious censorship trends of the past few years: book bans. Since 2021, attempts to ban books in U.S. public schools and libraries have risen sharply, and they have most often targeted books dealing with issues like race and gender. Organizations like the American Library Association have diligently kept track of banning efforts.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
