After name mix-up, online hatred is directed at wrong CEO

Roman Szkaradek watched the US Open tennis match between Polish player Kamil Majchrzak and Karen Khachanov of Russia last Thursday without thinking much of it.

- ISABELLA KWAI ANATOL MAGDZIARZ

The next day, he woke up to a message from a stranger on social media: “Give back the hat, you thief”

Mr Szkaradek, a business owner in Rawicz, Poland, ignored the message. “I thought it was some kind of mistake,’ he said.

But as angry phone calls and hateful comments from all over the world overwhelmed his social media accounts and those of his office, Mr Szkaradek made a horrifying discovery: He had been inadvertently dragged into an internet furore over a viral moment at the tennis tournament in New York City.

Videos of aman appearing to lean in front of an excited child to snatch a hat being handed out by Mr Majchrzak, the tennis player, led to widespread criticism online. Soon, the hat-grabbing man was identified as Piotr Szczerek, the CEO of Drogbruk, a paving company based in Blaszki, Poland.

Mr Szkaradek, the business owner harassed online, is a different man. He leads a different Polish paving company, named Drog-Bruk, based in Zgorzelec, more than 100 miles from Blaszki. (Drogbruk roughly translates to “paving stones for roads” in Polish.)

Mr Szczerek is a tennis enthusiast who founded Drogbruk —no hyphen —with his wife, Anna Szczerek, in 1999, and sponsors young athletes in the region.

That distinction, however, was lost on the angry commenters who mistakenly flooded Mr Szkaradek and his company with righteous condemnation of an incident he had no part in.