Mnet Takes Measures Against Illegal Exchange Of "Produce 101 Season 2" Voting Accounts

Mnet’s “Produce 101 Season 2” is one of the hottest shows on air today, and many problems have arisen along with its popularity.

The eleven final trainees on the show will get the opportunity to debut as a boy group, and these trainees are determined by a combination of viewer votes and points obtained through various evaluations. Viewers can cast their votes only once a day via a verified CJ ONE account.

Mnet has blocked the creation of accounts from overseas IPs because overseas fans cannot verify themselves, and that makes it difficult for Mnet to control the number of votes cast by each person.

However, it was found that some overseas fans were selling and buying CJ ONE accounts from Chinese e-commerce sites, and Mnet has confirmed that these accounts were used to cast votes on the “Produce 101 Season 2” website. This is a grave problem, considering that this is identity theft and that it could even be a result of a hacking attack.

Mnet explained, “Votes from the exchanged accounts accounted for about 2 percent of all votes, and we have taken measures to block these users from the website. Those votes were excluded from the poll, but there was no change in the rankings. We have also requested that the post be taken down from the Chinese e-commerce site, but we have judged that it is realistically impossible to block all of the exchanges that occur through various routes. We have come up with the following measures to solve this problem: 1. Block votes from Chinese IPs 2. Implement a two-step captcha system 3. Add a self-verification step on the voting page to prevent illegally exchanged accounts from accessing the page.”

Mnet concluded, “This incident is a result of the massive interest gathered by the program and the trainees. We will do our best to protect the fairness and security of the voting system and ensure that there will be no more issues in the progress of the show.”

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