The Chinese Internet company Tencent Holdings announced Tuesday that it has reached an exclusive deal with Time Warner's HBO network to stream their television shows. The channel is known for its provocative and risqué content that seems to be a mismatch with the country's scrutiny of media.

Tencent is a leader in China for social networking and gaming and now will exclusively provide viewers with hit series like "Game of Thrones," "True Detective" and "Boardwalk Empire."

"This partnership enables us to distribute some of the most groundbreaking programming in the world through our robust technology platform, to the benefit of Chinese Internet users," the president of Tencent, Martin Lau, said in a statement.

Despite the move to bring more diverse television content to Chinese Internet companies, government regulations have ramped up to oversee the formerly uncontrolled industry. Streaming businesses have shelled out more than $1 billion to obtain rights to foreign content in the past two years.

Tencent did not disclose how much money HBO received for its content.

Regulators now have the authority to take down content they deem "obscene" or "pornographic" material. They also can control how much foreign content can be shown on a video site, a tactic to try and protect the still budding domestic film and TV industry from outside domination. Competitors to Tencents include Sohu.com, Youku Tudou, e-commerce titan Alibaba and iQiyi, which is affiliated with the search engine Baidu and Xiaomi.

Tencent said that the TV series and films are scheduled to be available online in the very near future but are still subject to approval and possible censorship from Chinese regulators to be distributed online.

Earlier this year, CCTV, the state broadcast network, aired a censored version of "Game of Thrones." Authorities have told streaming services recently to take down episodes of popular American series like "The Big Bang Theory," "The Good Wife," "NCIS" and "The Practice."