A Polish business owner woke up to a storm of digital outrage over a viral moment at the US Open—except he wasn't even there. Roman Szkaradek, who runs Drog-Bruk (with a hyphen) in Zgorzelec, Poland, found himself on the receiving end of angry messages and one-star reviews after social media erupted over a Polish paving company CEO who appeared to snatch a souvenir hat from a child on Thursday. The internet's target was meant to be Piotr Szczerek, CEO of a different paving company—Drogbruk (no hyphen), based more than 100 miles away.
The distinction between the two men and their companies got lost in the online fury. "This hate is so intense that it simply can't be stopped," Szkaradek told the New York Times on Tuesday, describing a deluge of phone calls so intense that "I can't cope." Indeed, the company's manager tells TVP World Drog-Bruk got more than 150 calls on Monday. And its formerly glowing Google rating cratered to just 1.2 stars. (Sample reviews: "Who would want to do business from someone who steals from a child? You are a low-down piece of dirt." "Disgusting owner/management.")
"I am an honest entrepreneur who has been building his image for so many years, and in two days it was crushed to dust," Szkaradek said of the company he has run for 13 years. Szkaradek says a lawyer he reached out to saw no way out, and his efforts to score a public apology from Drogbruk have not been successful. The one thing he knows he won't do is change his company's own name, despite suggestions to do so. (Szczerek, the actual hat-grabber, later apologized online and returned the cap to the child.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
