Starship Entertainment is taking legal action against those who write malicious comments and posts about their artists online.

On July 4, the agency released the following statement:

Hello. This is Starship Entertainment.

We judged that the malicious comments and posts about our agency’s artists MONSTA X, WJSN, Soyou, Dasom, [IZ*ONE’s] An Yu Jin, and [IZ*ONE’s] Jang Won Young that have been surfacing online have reached a degree that cannot be overlooked. To take legal action, we signed a delegation contract with law firm Ius & Lex last month and submitted an official complaint regarding part of the malicious commenters to the Seoul Gangnam Police Office today on July 4.

We had been hoping for the malicious commenters to [stop] posting malicious comments of their own accord, but they continued to cross the line to a degree that could not be tolerated. We decided that being merciful is not a suitable way of dealing with the issue. We will take strong action without mercy as the continuous behavior of the malicious commenters caused great damage to the agency and our artists.

Furthermore, we are currently constantly monitoring defamatory posts. After continuously monitoring [posts and comments] that pertain to slander and the spread of false rumors that violate the laws on defamation and insult in the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, etc., we will take follow-up measures through strong legal action and do our best to protect the rights of our artists.

The various reports sent in by fans are very helpful, so we ask you to continue sending in any posts that pertain to slander or spread false rumors about our artists.

Once again, we sincerely thank those who support the agency and our artists.