I don't know if this case per se is the same, but people have tried to game spotify monetization in the favor of certain artists before. For example a band rele

I don't know if this case per se is the same, but people have tried to game spotify monetization in the favor of certain artists before. For example a band released a sleeping album with only silent tracks and asked their fans to listen to it over night, so they'd get higher stream counts. Fans did that at little cost. The album was eventually banned. This just might be similar. I wouldn't assume any humans actually hear the white noise or the ads.