Mark Zuckerberg Inadvertently Photobombs Chinese TV

So much for keeping Facebook out of China.

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Facebook’s billionaire CEO Mark Zuckerberg may have found a back-up gig: cameos in police dramas. During the filming of the fourth episode of Chinese Police, a documentary series by China Central Television, Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, made a surprise appearance.

Skip the slow-mo explosions in the Chinese-language trailer and fast forward to around 28 seconds. Yep, there’s our beloved billionaire, all smiles while strolling through Shanghai during a business trip in 2010 with then-girlfriend Chan. Originally pointed out by ChinaSmack, which translated a post by a user on Sina Weibo — a Chinese social media site similar to Twitter — the footage quickly invited conspiracy theories.

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Some say it’s possible that this was a staged attempt by the central government to reflect the “leadership’s fear that its power could be threatened by allowing citizens to organize outside of Communist Party control and enjoy unfettered access to information,” writes the AP.

Of course, it’s not without irony that Zuckerberg made his acting debut on a police show in China, where Facebook is largely blocked. But it’s unclear what is gained by planting him on national TV. As one Sina Weibo commenter put it, according to ChinaSmack:

The head of an illegal foreign website, and they even planted an advertisement for him!

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