Stop the witch hunt

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Stop the witch hunt

Public uproar over a female waitress’ alleged use of violence against a 33-year-old pregnant woman at a nationwide franchise restaurant has left an indelible scar on not only an individual but also the restaurant chain. Fury over the alleged incident took Twitter by storm gone viral throughout various social networking services.

According to Seobuk District Police in Cheonan, South Chungcheong, the pregnant woman, surnamed Yoo, maintains that the 40-year-old Chaesundang employee did push her onto the floor of the restaurant on Feb. 17, but now retracts her statements about further assault that she posted online. Yoo posted a message on her Twitter account lambasting the restaurant in Cheonan, which she had visited for lunch with her nephew. She stated that she had been assaulted by the waitress after complaining about her poor service and unfriendly attitude.

She alleged that the waitress threw plates onto the table and never responded to her efforts to order. This led Yoo to leave the restaurant just 20 minutes after arriving. But as she was exiting, Yoo alleged that she was suddenly hit in the back by the waitress, which escalated into a hair-pulling catfight.

On the Twitter posting, Yoo insisted that after she informed the waitress of her pregnancy, but the 40-year-old proceeded to kick her in the stomach and insulted her.

In the beginning, the public was furious with the female employee at the Chaesundang restaurant. Then the pregnant lady suddenly became the target for public attacks after the police found that Yoo actually kicked the female waitress in the stomach. Now, all of Yoo’s personal information - including even her behavioral patterns - has been exposed in cyberspace.

The restaurant chain feels that it received utterly unfair treatment from netizens after experiencing an unrecoverable decrease in sales and extremely negative publicity. This is a good example of an ungrounded, merciless malediction in which an unfortunate incident at an affiliated restaurant immediately spreads to all other franchised stores, dealing a fatal blow to the entire organization. Franchised businesses also should take the incident as an opportunity to establish an efficient system for educating their employees and addressing customer dissatisfaction.

A group of senseless netizens who actively took part in diffusing falsified information in cyberspace by posting unfiltered messages on portal sites while asking for retweets should also take responsibility for the damage done to the restaurant chain. They should remember that if they dare to take the lead or join in spreading ungrounded slanders, it eventually comes back around.


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