Jinjiang Literature, a widely known Chinese online literature platform, recently drew controversy for charging its writers to revise their work.

The new regulation appeared on Jinjiang’s platform on Monday, following the website’s half-month suspension for content review, according to the writers registered on the website.

Under the regulation, writers need to pay 10 "Jinjiang coins“ starting from their third revision to any chapter. Ten of the platform's coins cost 0.1 yuan (0.014 U.S. dollars) in real money.

Though seemingly a small amount of money, the new regulation outraged both writers and readers of the website, stirring debate on Chinese social media website Weibo.

"I remembered the authors’ right to revise their works is protected by the law," a Weibo user commented.

The regulation persisted for only two days. On Wednesday, Jinjiang Literature stated that it would remove the charge. A company insider said that the regulation was aimed at limiting "unnecessary revisions" so as to speed up the review of the content.

According to the website, as the standard for content reviews has been tightened, staff need to go over some four million articles before approving their publication.

However, the website's registered users don’t buy the explanation. An anonymous writer was quoted by The Paper, a Shanghai-based news outlet, in expressing his dissatisfaction over the website. He said that it took more than three days for the platform to review an article he had submitted. 

All the fuss came after a campaign against pornography and illegal publications was initiated around July 15. At least 12 online literature platforms have been asked to deal with content suspected of spreading obscenity and pornography.

Ever since the huge success of Taiwan online writer Tsai Chih-heng's first online novel "Flyin' Dance" back in 1998, the landscape for online literature has been through great changes.

A report released during the 2018 "China Online Literature +" Conference (COL+), as of 2017, the market size for online literature reached 12.9 billion yuan (1.87 billion U.S. dollars). At least 14 million people were registered as online writers, and by the end of 2018, the number of readers exceeded 432 million people. 

In recent years, online literature has provided huge resources for other entertainment industries, including film and television. A number of hit TV shows or blockbusters were adapted from online novels.

However, along with its rapid growth, problems emerged for the industry. While boosting Chinese literature, the market has also cultivated a hotbed for pornographic content.

In 2017, a regulation was issued urging online literature companies to take into account societal values, requiring platforms to enhance their content supervision.

However, the regulation has also made administering such platforms challenging. Jinjiang sets a bad example of facing up to the challenges by shifting its pressure to the writers and readers, say insiders.

According to The Paper, the low efficiency of Jinjiang Literature in dealing with content supervision could also be attributed to their limited investment in app development. Many of the review work could be conducted by a better developed system, as is reported by the news outlet.

Jinjiang Literature was founded in 2003 and is one of the main female-oriented online literature platforms. It has more than 3.19 million online novels and about 1.76 million registered writers. China Literature, formerly known as Tencent Literature, owns 50 percent of its shares.