Police Are Investigating All Four Seasons Of “Produce” For Vote Manipulation
Police are currently investigating claims of live text vote manipulation on Mnet‘s Produce series. Idol School, another survival show with similar tropes from Mnet, will not be included in the investigation.
An official from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency has confirmed that they were investigating on September 2. He said,
We have seized the data for the 4th season (Produce X 101) first. We are still suspicious and have since obtained aditional data to analyze. We are investigating whether there is a discrepency between the data and the final ranking.
Mnet gave birth to top groups thanks to the Produce series. In Season 1, the final line-up debuted as I.O.I. Later, in the second season, WANNA ONE debuted. For Produce 48, they debuted IZ*ONE. Their latest debuted group comes from Produce X 101 and is called X1.
Due to suspicions of vote manipulation, newly debuted X1 has not been able to promote on music programs except for Mnet’s M Countdown.
Mnet has also released a statement, saying,
We have conducted our own investigation after the controversy was brought to our attention and we believe that it will be difficult for us to get all the facts. Because of this, we will allow the police to do their investigation and we will cooperate with them to clarify the facts and take responsibility for our actions. We sincerely apologize again for the controversy.
Share This Post
