One of the biggest groups on the site are K-pop fans. The MAMA Awards, an annual Korean music awards show hosted by Mnet, a channel owned by a large South Korean media conglomerate, says voting for two categories has been affected by internal changes within the social networking site.
In an official statement, Mnet said that it is impossible to "secure and collect voting data" for their "Worldwide Icon of the Year" and "Worldwide Fan's Choice" awards. 20 percent of the total for "Worldwide Icon of the Year" and 10 percent of the total for "Worldwide Fan's Choice" will no longer be counted.
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The PR representative wouldn't say if the voting was affected by staffing or something else.
Fans were not happy with the change. One person said that they were voting on the social networking site and posting the results for nothing. "Why would they waste our time?" asked a third person.
There were suspicions that the statement was timed to coincide with recent accusations of voting fraud. The MAMA Awards gave a statement regarding this concern.
"MAMA AWARDS monitors the voting data in real time to flag any irregularities and any abnormal votes monitored through post-data verifications are excluded from the final vote count. To ensure transparency and objectivity, the entire voting process, including the final vote tally, is verified by Samil PwC - the same company that handles the votes for the Academy Awards. MAMA is a all-round awards that incorporates global index, reflecting the voices from global fans and data from global music platforms. As the leading global K-POP awards, it is our priority to ensure fair and accurate voting results."
The Awards have added a notice on their website that assures visitors that they have conducted a thorough verification to ensure fair and accurate voting results and that votes will also go through a thorough verification and data confirmation process.
When producers of Produce 101, a popular competition series on Mnet, were found guilty of vote manipulation, it brought attention to vote rigging. The dissolution of X1, a group formed on Produce X 101, resulted in distrust among fans and viewers. The MAMA Awards were paused in order to address allegations of voter fraud.
The MAMA Awards claim to be the "World's No.1 K-pop Awards" Performers include Stray Kids, ZICO, Tomorrow x Together and NewJeans.
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