{"id":599438,"date":"2026-07-23T00:07:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T00:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/599438\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T00:07:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T00:07:24","slug":"sony-imposes-strictest-ever-social-media-guidelines-on-staff-due-to-ps5-disc-debacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/599438\/","title":{"rendered":"Sony Imposes ‘Strictest Ever Social Media Guidelines’ on Staff Due to PS5 Disc Debacle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sony<\/a> Image: Push Square<\/p>\n

According to ex-Santa Monica Studio employee Alanah Pearace<\/a>, Sony has imposed the \u201cstrictest social media guidelines\u201d ever on its employees due to PS5\u2019s disc debacle.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the manufacturer announced plans to cease manufacturing physical media<\/a> in January 2028.<\/p>\n

This has created one of the biggest and longest-running backlashes I\u2019ve ever seen in almost two decades covering PlayStation, but the manufacturer is yet to say a word about any of it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because, according to the former God of War Laufey<\/a> writer, it predicted the backlash and has told its staff to keep their mouths shut.<\/p>\n

While Pearce explains the platform holder regularly enforces these kind of policies around new game announcements et al, she also stresses that these are some of the most forceful guidelines the company has ever implemented.<\/p>\n

She said:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cSony already knew everyone would be p*ssed off \u2013 they knew this. People working within PlayStation first-party studios told me Sony had the strictest social media guidelines for this particular thing they\u2019ve ever seen issued.<\/p>\n

Sony does somewhat regularly tell employees what they can or can\u2019t say about certain things. I was under a lot of guidelines when I was working on God of War Laufey \u2013 I still am. And they did send me guidelines regarding what I could say on the day the game was announced.<\/p>\n

But in this instance, it\u2019s apparently the strictest the employees I spoke to have ever seen regarding public communications. They would only have done this if they knew it was going to be an enormous PR issue. This is no surprise to them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/blockquote>\n

Like Pearce points out, this does suggest it anticipated a robust backlash \u2013 although I do wonder whether it expected things to go on this long.<\/p>\n

All of the platform holder\u2019s social media accounts continue to get peppered with Community Notes and comments day after day, and there\u2019s no real sign of this dying down.<\/p>\n

To be honest, I\u2019m not particularly surprised to see Sony clamp down on its staff, because one errant comment from any of its employees could end up escalating this whole thing.<\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s frustrating to learn the company intends to deal with all this by staying silent \u2013 I\u2019ve long argued it needs to communicate with us better<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ex-IGN<\/a> reporter goes on to explain why she believes it\u2019s unlikely Sony will back down, pointing out that its disc manufacturing facility in Austria<\/a> is already being repurposed as a microlens facility, which is a component considered critical for AI data centres.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a good video that gets into the nitty-gritty of the issue, without misrepresenting facts or leaning into misinformation, so I recommend watching it if you\u2019re eager to learn more.<\/p>\n

I do hope someone from Sony will eventually come out and speak to us like we\u2019re humans, though \u2013 even if it is telling the rest of its staff to stay quiet.<\/p>\n

[source youtube.com<\/a>]<\/p>\n

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See Also<\/dt>\n
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\"Sammy<\/p>\n

As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He\u2019s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Image: Push Square According to ex-Santa Monica Studio employee Alanah Pearace, Sony has imposed the \u201cstrictest social media…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[74],"tags":[18,19,4286,17,11908,239711,4517,82],"class_list":["post-599438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-industry","tag-ireland","tag-ps5","tag-ps6","tag-sony","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116966381872443352","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}