the LONDON – Throw into the sea as the proverbial “message in a bottle” means to turn romantically to the lot. But today there is someone able to pilot it with a power worthy of the Big Brother orwellian: the algorithm of Facebook. As is revealed in this incredible story told by the Bbc.
Walking recently on the beach, Miles Taverner, a lord who lives in Burnham-on-Crouch, a small town of the county of Essex, on the east coast of England, is precisely a bottle with a message. There are penned a few words: “If you find this package, please contact Alfie and Chloe in Clacton-on-Sea”, followed by a phone number.
Clacton is another seaside resort in Essex, to the north of Burnham. Intrigued, mr. Taverner called the number indicated, but not the one answers: a recorded message informs him that he is no longer in service.
However, the day after, between the people that Facebook suggests him to ask for friendship, note the name Alfie, a resident of Clacton-on-Sea. The coincidence seems too great to be fortuitous. Ask the friendship to Alfie, then contact him by Messenger, asking him if he had put a message in a bottle.
Alfie finds it hard to believe it: “What is this, a joke?” As it turns out, actually did put a message in a bottle, but eight years before, when together with a friend, and Chloe referred to above, worked in the port of Clacton, and you were fun to throw into the sea a “message in a bottle”, as it says in the famous song, to see if it would have ever arrived somewhere. “I had almost forgot”, he exclaims. “She does like to know?”.
Ragionandoci together, after a while, the two include the way in which Facebook has placed them in communication. Years earlier, Alfie had opened a profile on the social network, indicating between the various data in your phone number. Later, he had changed, without thinking to change it on Facebook. But when Taverner has called his old number, the algorithm has noticed and has shown Alfie as a person who could be interested to ask for friendship.
more proof, if anyone had doubts, that the web knows everything about us. And a warning for the romantic: if you are on social media, do not believe that it is fate that lead to the destination of your message in the bottle. It was Faceboook.
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