Should we consume the art or products of people accused of sexual abuse?

Sexual abuse accusations are often unconfirmed

Question: Should we consume the art or products of people accused of sexual abuse?
Position1 of 4›: Yes, because the art is separate from the artist
Argument‹2 of 2: Sexual abuse accusations are often unconfirmed

Many of the artists currently being boycotted were simply accused of sexual assault but haven't yet gone through the court system and been found guilty of sexual assault. People are innocent until proven guilty, so it is too early to start boycotting them.

The argument

This position rests on a claim about evidence rather than about the seriousness of the conduct alleged. Accusations circulate, on this view, in an environment poorly suited to establishing whether they are true. The social media code of justice is often quick to jump to conclusions and to follow bandwagon stories that have very little grounding in truth, and the same features that make such platforms compelling, their accessibility and their appetite for the sensational, make it incredibly hard to fact check everything that is said on them. Speed and reach are precisely the qualities that careful verification lacks, so a claim can be repeated everywhere before anyone has established whether it is accurate. The second half of the argument concerns what follows from acting on a claim in that state. Boycotting an artist is not a mild or easily reversed gesture: it would ruin their entire career, cutting off the money that makes their work possible and so preventing them from working on new projects at all. Nor does the damage lift once a record is corrected, because rumors take a very long time to quell, far longer than they take to spread. The cost of acting wrongly therefore falls heavily and durably on the person accused, while the cost of waiting falls on no one in particular. Taken together these premises yield a rule of restraint: people should be sure of the truth of accusations before they jump on them and take action. Where an accusation remains unconfirmed, refusing to consume the work is a penalty imposed on the strength of something not yet established, and imposed by the least reliable tribunal available. Until the truth is settled, proponents conclude, there is no established ground for treating the work as tainted by conduct that has not been shown to have occurred, and the art can be approached as separate from the artist.

Premises

[P1]Social media justice is quick to jump to conclusions and follow bandwagon stories with little grounding in truth, and its sensational nature makes accusations hard to fact-check. [P2] Boycotting an accused artist ruins their entire career and livelihood, even though rumours take a long time to quell. [P3] People should therefore be sure an accusation is true before acting on it. [C] Therefore, because sexual abuse accusations are often unconfirmed, we may still consume the art since it is separate from the artist.

Counter-arguments

The ultimate truth often takes a long time to come out. Regardless, it will always be better to have sided with the potential victim than to have sided with a potential rapist. To not make a change and continue the status quo as a consumer is a decision in and of itself. It is not to continue to do nothing. It is to actively discount the accusations of the victim and choose to believe the perpetrator more. That is unacceptable, given how grave an issue like sexual abuse is.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] To not do anything is to make a premature decision to side with the rapist.