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Intrigue piles upon intrigue in the Chinese online TV world right now, as top U.S. shows are banned from online streaming sites but are being lined up to re-appear on the state broadcaster CCTV.

So fiendish are the twists and turns of the story so far that it would not be out of place among the fleshpots and ultraviolent warriors of the HBO series Game of Thrones, which, incredibly, aired on Chinas national broadcaster CCTV on Sunday.

Webizens are wailing and gnashing their teeth over a government decision to pull The Big Bang Theory, NCIS, The Good Wife and The Practice from online streaming sites. They are calling it the latest attack on free speech, and poignantly asking for the return of Sheldon, one of Big Bang Theorys most beloved stars in China.

However, this may really be all about business and re-imposing state control.

As Game of Thrones Cersei Lannister would put it: You win or you die."

They are showing Game of Thrones and yet Big Bang Theory isnt safe. Something is wrong with that, a senior source at an online TV company, who requested anonymity, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Until now, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television has allowed video websites to operate with few of the restrictions imposed on movies or TV, as it tries to encourage a high-tech industry where China has opportunities to lead the field.

Online companies such as Youku, Tencent and Sohu have operated with far more freedom to show edgy material, such asThe Walking DeadandHouse of Cards, than the traditional media, such as TV and cinema. Its long been baffling how the government allows shows likeHouse of Cards, particularly the second season, which had a storyline critical of Chinese government corruption.

As reported inThe Hollywood Reporterearlier this month, SAPPRFT said it was planning to increase censorship of foreign content .

The regulators have been working on proper regulations since 2009. I firmly believe that the government will leave enough room for us and the online TV content providers. We provide lots of revenues for them, said the source.

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Harsher Censorship or Cunning Plot? Confusion Reigns Over Chinese Online TV Bans

China on Wednesday started blocking the online storage service Dropbox.

Censorship watchdog group GreatFire.org reported the blocking on Thursday, stating that access had been cut to dropbox.com and to the company's apps.

China had previously tried blocking Dropbox as far back as 2010, GreatFire.org said in an email. But in early 2014, Dropbox updated its app to use the HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) communications protocol, helping it bypass the country's censorship.

China, however, has begun cutting access to Dropbox's HTTPS address, banning the company's services completely in what GreatFire.org said was the "strictest method of blocking."

Dropbox did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Dropbox site was inaccessible from Beijing, and the company's apps failed to synch data between devices.

China has been stepping up its censorship lately, targeting Google on May 31 with a block that's disrupted access to nearly all the company's services. The government has given no explanation for the move, but it took place just ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests that were brutally quashed on June 4, 1989.

The historical event is among the many censored topics in the country; before it was blocked, Google was one source of unfiltered search results about it.

Prior to the Google block, terrorists in China's western Xinjiang region also killed dozens in a bombing attack. The country's state-run media later reported that Chinese police had arrested several terrorist groups that had been using messaging apps and online videos to organize.

In the case of Dropbox, the service's blocking will probably affect few users. China's own Internet giants including Baidu are offering similar cloud storage services and Dropbox has yet to actively market its services to the country.

In recent weeks, Chinese Internet users have been complaining about the country's Google blocking, and have urged the government to end it. Government censors, however, are deleting social-networking posts about the topic, according to GreatFire.org. The group is cataloging the deleted posts on one of its sites.

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China cuts access to Dropbox

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