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The 901-million number had not even been audited or certified by an independent third party. This was inappropriate — like taking as fact a mining company’s estimated ounces of gold in the ground. I wondered if my Facebook page, opened years before and never used, was a so-called “active user.” I checked. My page was there, but so were another 33 Facebook pages with my name, an egg in place of a photo, and a link to my email address. Looking back, these were bots.

On May 25, 2012, I wrote a Financial Post column —“Is Facebook for Real?” — and questioned that, if there were 33 fake pages in my name on Facebook’s registry, how many other fake users were there? Dividing 33 into 901 so-called “active” users, did this mean there were really only 27 million real users, which would reduce the value of Facebook shares to $1.15 apiece from $38?

My calls to Facebook for responses went unanswered. The column created a stir in trading circles and at the Securities and Exchange Commission. The stock steadily fell in price in the weeks that followed, down to as low as US$19.69 from its issued price of US$38 a share. Then, on Aug. 2, 2012, Facebook admitted in a report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that there were as many as 80-million fake or bogus accounts. The company said this represented only eight per cent of the total but provided no explanation as to why this had occurred or who had done this, and did not provide a pledge to independently audit “active” users in the future.