The leading platform began to rectify AI novels. On May 22, the "Tomato Novel Announcement on Strengthening Low-Quality Content Management (May)" issued by Tomato clearly stated that "the platform strictly prohibits low-quality creation through content hydration, stacking and other means...including but not limited to the abuse of AI tools to produce batches, serious lack of originality, and falling into the category of 'shoddy production.'" The announcement also revealed that the platform has refused to sign 112,700 low-quality books and has disposed of more than 40,000 low-quality illegal books.
Not long ago, some netizens discovered that the well-known AI novel writing tool "Xingyue Writing" had highly promoted many popular novels that were read by millions, but almost all of them were wiped out, and dozens of novels were removed from the shelves.
"Xingyue Writing" is an AI online text-assisted writing system independently developed by Zhiyu Technology. It includes AI writing, expansion and polishing, AI book splitting, creative generation, brain hole generation, outline generation, detailed outline generation, world view generation and other functions. Previously, Xingyue Writing vigorously promoted its products on multiple platforms, claiming that ordinary people could earn tens of thousands a month through AI writing.
Over the past year, AI has stirred up the ecology of the Internet literary circle.
For creators, mass-produced AI novels hit new book lists, squeezing out original authors’ exposure space; for readers, a large number of identical AI novels bring a poor reading experience; for platforms, low-quality AI novels are overwhelming, with similar settings and widespread plagiarism, seriously affecting the reputation of online literary platforms.
Entertainment Capital has previously reported that an author with a monthly income of 800,000 yuan was involved in the AI writing controversy. Earlier, Qidian Chinese website had cracked down on AI novels. This time, Tomato Novel Network has removed many AI novels from the shelves on a large scale, including some popular works with the labels of "Tomato Selection" and "Tomato Popularity", which also shows the platform's determination to regulate AI content and clarify the boundaries of AI creation.
Many of Xingyue's AI novels have been removed from the shelves. Can AI really write a path to wealth?
Tomato's first shot at rectifying AI fell on a novel called "Rebirth as a Tree, My Sister Handed Me Over to the State". The reading data of this novel once exceeded one million. It was a hit case that Xingyue vigorously promoted on various platforms. It is currently banned from the shelves.
Some people speculated that it was removed because it was suspected of plagiarizing the novel "Rebirth into a Tree" from other platforms. However, the official reason for the ban clearly stated that "there is low-quality expression of AI."
Subsequently, popular works such as "Survival of the Nation: I Return Ten Thousand Times to the Dragon Kingdom by Signing in" (172,000 readers), "The Lifelong Auction at the Beginning, the Saint King went crazy" (79,000 readers), "I have a top-notch background, but you still dare to bully me" (30,000 readers), and "I am almost a saint, but my classmates are not yet gifted" have been removed from the shelves.
Soon, the matter spread in the Internet literary circle, and videos and articles revealing the inside story of Xingyue's writing appeared.
Xingyue Writing is not produced by a major manufacturer and does not have an independent APP. It mainly relies on web links.
When the product was first launched in June 2024, its start-up team had only two people. The founder "Raptors Crossing the River" was responsible for writing prompt words, usage tutorials and posting on social platforms to attract traffic, and the partner "Yue Shen" was responsible for technology development. After adding operational staff, the entire team only had eight people. In the official public account of "Xingyue Writing", the founder revealed that the entrepreneurial route of online AI writing originated from his experience of trying to pay off debts by writing novels.
Open the web page and you will find that every step of it has corresponding AI functions. From scanning lists to unpacking books to selecting characters and writing outlines, with the help of tutorials, users can learn about the latest online writing trends, combine them with popular favorites, and start creating a 10,000-word novel in a short time.
Xingyue Writing has two recharge modes: one is the word count package, which consumes (generates) novels with as many words as you buy. The price of 100,000 words is 19 yuan, and the price of 3 million words is 599 yuan. Generally, there is a discount of 40% to 40% off.
The other is a monthly subscription, which is divided into four price levels: silver, gold, diamond, and supreme. The original price is as low as 198 yuan for a monthly subscription and as high as 3,998 yuan for an annual subscription. This type of package does not consume words when generating novels during the membership period, but using certain functions such as questioning and opening books does consume words.
If you want to make money on an online writing platform, daily life is the most basic thing. Users of Xingyue Writing will inevitably have a high demand for the platform. The founder of Xingyue Writing once revealed to the media Geek Park that the payment rate of the platform exceeds 17%, which is very profitable for an AI product developed by a small team.
Relying on user paid subscriptions and value-added services, Xingyue Writing gained more than 20,000 monthly active users within a year of its launch, and the eight founding team members earned millions of dollars every month.
Xingyue Writing not only sells tools, but also “secrets on making money”.
“From a newbie to writing over 60 short stories a month, earning 40,000+ in 3 months”, “Newbies using AI to write short stories earn 9,000 a month”, “AI writing novels earns 1,600 a day”…
Video titles like these are money-making cases posted by founders on self-media accounts, attracting interested potential users to private communities, and then selling courses to monetize them.
Xingyue Writing displays cases of web articles created with its assistance on the homepage of the website. The categories are rich, and many of them include novels that have topped the platform’s new book list. Users can directly click on the link to jump to the original text to read.
For example, the author "Wanfeng Yeyue" released the work "The Auction of Life Shou Yuan at the Beginning, the Holy Kings and the Great Emperors Are Going Crazy" has been read by nearly 100,000 people. It once reached the top of the new book list and earned nearly 100,000 yuan. It was also adapted into a short play; "Sacrifice Spicy Tiao Glows Red, Money-worshiping Ex Regrets and Cries" was adapted into a comic and topped the animated cartoon list.
The various publicity cases of Xingyue Writing have created an extremely beautiful scene for workers: as long as you understand AI writing, you can become a master of online writing, and earning tens of thousands a month is not a dream.
However, it is precisely these AI novels that are blatantly displayed by the development team to show off that "the Internet literary circle no longer needs a master", and have become the first to dominate AI content in Tomato novels.
Will the action to rectify AI become a self-rescue for the online literature industry?
On May 19, after the delisting incident took place, the founder of Xingyue Writing, Dragon Crossing the River, explained the reason why the novel was delisted in the member group: "Tomato does not want to see the author publicly promote it to the AI platform."
As a result, not long after, he directly chose to disband the group chat.
Prior to this, the official Xiaohongshu of Xingyue Writing had also made a statement that "Tomato cannot help AI".
Now, the platform has used actions to prove its attitude towards AI novels.
Some people question that the various popular AI novels promoted by Xingyue that occupy the first place in the new book list may be just based on the volume, not real data, let alone the content of the novel itself - because these online articles have a common problem: hundreds of thousands of readers are shown, but there are only a few dozen reminders a day.
(The founder of Xingyue Writing refutes the rumor in a post questioning "flush volume")
The proliferation of low-quality AI articles on online article platforms has always been criticized. Two years ago, the leading novel platform caused controversy when it added an AI training clause to the author signing agreement.
In February this year, Tomato released the "Tomato Novel Announcement on Rectifying Large-scale Mass Production of Low-Quality Content," stating that it would focus on rectifying violations such as long-term release of low-quality content, abuse of AI tools to generate works, and batch updates of multiple low-quality works in a single day.
Under this announcement, you can see many people commenting and liking it. For the author and readers, AI writing has been hard for a long time! AI works that ignore content quality have repeatedly seized platform traffic resources. This phenomenon has long aroused dissatisfaction in the Internet literary circle——
"If this continues, Tomato will be killed by AI. The first show will rob the traffic of normal novels. The lower-level authors will be too lazy to write because their income is affected, and then it will be a vicious circle.", "The studio's AI brushes books and robots brush reading to earn advertising fees. By then, the authors and readers will all be robots. Advertisers will find that there is no actual effective conversion at all, and sooner or later the advertising budget will be cut."...
On May 21, Tomato Novel officially released the "Long-form Online Posting Rules (Second Edition) Online Notice". The announcement clearly limits the number of works that a single author account can create and update daily and monthly, as well as the cumulative number of words that a single work can update daily and monthly. Some people believe that this is to prevent studios from uploading low-quality AI hydrology in batches.
At the same time, Tomato has also launched a facial recognition function for cash withdrawals. One ID card can only be bound to one account for cash withdrawals, completely blocking the loophole for studios to register accounts in batches and publish AI articles to make money.
The "Tomato Novels Announcement on Strengthening Low-Quality Content Management (May)" released again on May 22 supports users to participate in reporting and clarifies the punishment measures: "Refuse to sign, reduce distribution, limit updates, remove from shelves for 7 days/30 days/permanent."
Currently, the comment section of the announcement is full of applause:
"To be beautiful, we must strictly rectify shoddy AI articles, otherwise we will have a hard time getting ahead!", "Low-quality AI articles will only dilute the traffic pool and steal traffic from serious creators", "The reading volume of my works that I stopped updating for more than a year has suddenly increased recently, so it turns out that I am rectifying AI"...
The rectification actions of leading platforms have sounded a wake-up call for authors who use AI to batch write, clean, and write manuscripts. The era of delusional one-click generation and easy money-making using AI creation platforms has ended. Only writers with truly original abilities and creative ideas can stay.