[Mark Horton's Twitter]
A British IT worker has become the target of misdirected bashing by Chinese online users just because his name is similar to Mack Horton, an Australian swimmer who lashed at Chinese swimming star Yang Sun, calling him a "drug cheat".
All hell broke loose after Horton opened a tirade against Yang after he won the 400-meter freestyle Olympic race. Mack said: "(Yang) just kind of splashed me but I ignored him because I don't have time or respect for drug cheats."
The first provoker was Yang who taunted and splashed water at the Aussie swimmer in the training pool. Mark ignored it off but his post-race comment infuriated Chinese online users, fanned by the after-race images of Yang in despair. The Chinese people immediately sought for payback but got the wrong guy -- Mark Horton who was living an ordinary life in Watford, a town northwest of London.
Tens of thousands of Chinese online users launched an indiscriminate online attack on Mark Horton's Twitter account, bombarding his page with angry posts in Mandarin. Over 278,000 mentioned him in posts during the weekend and the number of malicious comments exceeded 300,000 on Monday.
[Mark Horton's Twitter]
As the misdirected attack continued, the British man updated his Twitter profile picture with his picture wearing a pair of baby arm floats. "For the record, I'm not the Australian swimmer who said something about a Chinese swimmer #sunyang," He tweeted. He also pointed out on his profile "In no way associated with #Mack Horton".
Aju News Park Sae-jin = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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