Chinese video streaming site AcFun, has gone offline again. Salaries of the company's employees have been delayed since November last year, and its servers are facing the possibility of being switched off. ZHENG CHUNYING has more.

"I want to live another 500 years" That's the latest post on AcFun's Weibo account. China's first video streaming website that allows users to leave real-time comments while watching video appeared to be down on Thursday.

When attempting to reach the website. Users were greeted with a message stating "This site can't be reached."

Saddened by the news, longtime users of AcFun flooded its latest Weibo post's comments section to voice their agony.

"I love you. Please don't go,"

"I've lost my girlfriend, and I can't afford losing my dear ACFUN"

"So sad, could you give me a last chance to top up my VIP account?"

Launched in 2007, AcFun used to be a pioneer in tailoring its content and features to a young generation of Chinese Internet users, Inspired by the Japanese site Niconico, AcFun was the first video streaming website in China that allowed users to interact in real-time; Users’ "danmu"  would float across the screen as videos played. However, AcFun began losing popularity and slipped into financial difficulty. Over the past few years, the company has seen a high turnover of management. In 2010,  AcFun's founder sold the website to Chen Shaojie, the general manager of Chinese gaming site bianfeng.com for 4 million yuan.

However, Chen left AcFun in 2014 after he managed to successfully incubate douyu TV, benefiting from the high user traffic of AcFun. Following that in 2017, AcFun ran into trouble with regulators multiple times for not having the correct licenses for supplying certain types of video content. And financing has been the biggest threat to the company's survival.

As of the end of 2016, losses incurred by the company are believed to be around 146 million yuan. According to QQ.com, servers used by AcFun are provided by Alibaba Cloud, with AcFun's monthly contract expiring at the end of January. However, according to the rules if AcFun fails to pay its February fee and doesn't renew its contract within seven days at the beginning of each month, the service provider has the right to delete all saved data and stop offering its servers for the site. So the clock is indeed ticking for AcFun. ZHENG CHUNYING, CGTN.