"Boys Planet" Denies Rumors Of View Count Manipulation

“Boys Planet” has denied rumors of manipulating view counts.

Mnet’s “Boys Planet” is the male version of the 2021 audition show that gave rise to Kep1er. 98 trainees, including 49 Korean trainees and 49 trainees from other countries around the world, compete for the top nine spots to debut as members of a global boy group.

While the show is running toward its finale next week, allegations of manipulating the view counts for the “Here I Am” fancam video evaluation were brought up, noting that contestant Seok Matthew’s fancam, which was ranked No. 35 toward the end of the evaluation period, reached No. 9 by the end.

In response to the rumor, a representative of Mnet shared on April 10, “It is true that contestant Seok Matthew ranked No. 9 among G-Group in the first group battle for the signal song fancam video evaluation. His rank is the result of converting the views [of the contestants’ individual fancam videos] on the Boys Planet’s official YouTube channel into points and listing them according to the fancam evaluation method (‘views’ + ‘likes’ x 100) which we previously informed.”

They continued, “At the time, G-Group’s Krystian and Wang Zi Hao could not participate [in the evaluation] due to health reasons at the time of filming the signal song fancam, thus they were excluded from the evaluation. We notified about this in advance. Aggregation of all the ‘Boys Planet’ data, including the [relevant] data, is being verified through the external organization Samil PwC.”

Mnet also remarked, “‘Shining Boys’ are the result of a poll in which the contestants voted themselves. They were selected through a poll which was conducted among all contestants excluding those who couldn’t participate due to health or other reasons.”

The debut group of “Boys Planet” will be selected 100 percent through viewers’ (Star Creators’) votes. The debut group will be made up of nine members, and the program will air its final episode on April 20.

Watch “Boys Planet” with subtitles below:

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