After updates to the rankings on the 2017 MAMA website, it has become evident that the results of Mnet‘s investigation into illegal votes has been concluded as many new changes are seen. The results, however, have left some fans really angry!
After announcing their intentions to temporarily shut down the website after suspicions of illegal voting, the results are now out! The organization found millions of illegal votes and thus removed them from the official tally, lowering votes for many people and changing the rankings in a major way.
Each category was affected, but some fandoms are unhappier than others and have responded angrily, even going so far as to accuse Mnet of being bought off by certain companies and having a bias toward different idol groups.
Illegal voting can come in various forms— manipulating your IP address to vote more than once per day with an account, creating fake accounts and names with which to vote, using bots to boost votes, and even buying votes from online companies that use fake accounts to increase people’s SNS audiences, help win contests, and more.
While Mnet made no comment on the different types of illegal votes they found being used, it was obvious that it had gotten serious if they paused voting in order to weed out votes that shouldn’t have counted and remove them from the totals. People who continue these methods will be banned from the website, and in some cases, even their IP addresses will be blocked.
The artists who took the biggest hit were IU and Oh Hyuk. In the category of Best Collaboration, they went down 3.34 million votes due to illegal methods. Girl’s Generation also followed closely behind with most votes removed. In one category, their votes went down over 3.3 million in number. In another category, they were also lowered by approximately 1.7 million votes.
Other notable cases include former “Produce 101: Season 2” trainee Samuel, who lost 1.9 million votes, and Jeong Sewoon, who lost 1.45 million votes. Sunmi went down 2.44 million votes for Best Dance Performance. Ailee went down 2.42 million votes for Best OST category, and Zico went down 1.55 million votes for Best Soloist category.
Perhaps the biggest game changer, however, is the fact that BTS, who had suddenly overtaken EXO in all categories the past two days, are now in second place in those same categories after their illegal votes were removed. Their illegal votes ranged from 810,000 votes in one category to 1.66 million votes in another category. Meanwhile, EXO’s votes stayed about the same. In a few categories, the illegal votes were relatively small, ranging from 3,000-5,000. Their biggest change was in the Best Music Video category, where they went down 860,000 votes.
As such, many categories are now showing completely different results than before Mnet started their investigation into illegal voting, leading many fans to claim bias or unfair measures.
Media: As Credited