Sony is the latest company to commit a social media blunder

Advice mom gave us — or should have, at least.

Sony, a company that’s deftly maneuvered the social media space, could use that advice. Yesterday, it was involved in a social media blunder that’s made the rounds in the blogosphere and mainstream media. Here’s the scoop:

Sony is reportedly angry about hackers sharing the root key for PlayStation3. If you know the root key — and you know what to do with it — you can enable your PlayStation 3 to read pirated or custom software. This is apparently a very big deal.

On Tuesday night, a Twitter member sent a tweet that contained the root key to a Sony Twitter account, @TheKevinButler. In case you don’t know, Kevin Butler is Sony’s fictional marketing exec, who has starred in a series of very well-received commercials about its PlayStation. The tweet to @TheKevinButler included the taunt, “Come at me.”

Kevin Butler, whoever that may be, retweeted the message with the root key and added: “Lemme guess … you sank my battleship.” The tweet was almost immediately removed.