diff --git a/src/shared/generator.c b/src/shared/generator.c
index 3a9d10ad69..ea665a6c33 100644
--- a/src/shared/generator.c
+++ b/src/shared/generator.c
@@ -1054,10 +1054,10 @@ int generator_write_veritysetup_service_section(
 void log_setup_generator(void) {
         if (invoked_by_systemd()) {
                 /* Disable talking to syslog/journal (i.e. the two IPC-based loggers) if we run in system context. */
-                if (cg_pid_get_owner_uid(0, NULL) == -ENXIO /* not running in a per-user slice */)
+                if (streq_ptr(getenv("SYSTEMD_SCOPE"), "system"))
                         log_set_prohibit_ipc(true);
 
-                /* This effectively means: journal for per-user generators, kmsg otherwise */
+                /* This effectively means: journal for per-user service manager generators, kmsg for per-system service manager generators */
                 log_set_target(LOG_TARGET_JOURNAL_OR_KMSG);
         } else
                 log_set_target(LOG_TARGET_AUTO);