PlayStation president Jim Ryan has been in hot water with his staff over a company-wide email meant to discuss the rumoured overturning of Roe Vs Wade.
There is heated debate in the United States at the moment, as if the Supreme Court overturns the precedent set by the case, individual states will be able to decide whether or not to criminalise abortion. The issue is obviously a contentious one, with people having their own passionate opinions one way or the other. This is why Ryan sent out the announcement in which he asked his staff to “respect differences of opinion.”
As reported by Bloomberg, in his email Ryan didn’t take a stance on the issue but instead wrote the PlayStation’s staff and players are “multi-faceted and diverse, holding many different points of view. We owe it to each other and to PlayStation’s millions of users to respect differences of opinion among everyone in our internal and external communities. Respect does not equal agreement. But it is fundamental to who we are as a company and as a valued global brand.”
However, it wasn’t Ryan’s neutral stance which angered his staff. Following the very serious topic he continued to say that he “would like to share something lighthearted to help inspire everyone to be mindful of having balance that can help ease the stress of uncertain world events,” before spending the next five paragraphs - compared to abortion rights which had just one - discussing his cats’ birthday, the cakes he got them, and how he was considering getting a dog.
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Employees expressed their displeasure at the tone and felt it trivialised the important political issue at hand. Speaking to the website, one employee under condition of anonymity said they’d “never been so mad about a cat birthday before.”
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