FCC Chair Brendan Carr is letting ISPs merge–as long as they end DEI programs
111 comments
·May 19, 2025Animats
walrus01
There's also the big cable MSO that is the combined RCN, Wave, Grande (now being rebranded as Astound), also owned/run by some wall street finance types.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&channel=ent...
Then you've got things like Canada's Bell buying a controlling interest in Ziply, which acquired Frontier Northwest 4-5 years ago.
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shakna
"DEI discimination".
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion... Discrimination.
What is it with Donald's administration that they so eagerly embrace DoubleThink?
tootie
Same reason the considered antifa to be public enemy #1.
winrid
I've literally been in meetings were managers said they couldn't hire someone because they weren't a minority.
(edit: also to clarify I think what the Trump admin is doing - bribing to take a different political stance - and allowing monopolies - is bad)
ok_dad
I’ve been in a meeting where my boss said he didn’t want to hire any more Indians because they aren’t fun to talk to at lunch, so I guess our two stories cancel out?
everdrive
Two wrongs do not make a right. Both practices are wrong.
jdonaldson
Are you saying that all we have to do is hire a few boring Indians to cancel out one DEI hire? This is huge news!
netik
Two racists make a right (winger) I guess.
jjtheblunt
> so I guess our two stories cancel out?
and emit a photon and antineutrino?
(nerd alert...). https://www.nuclear-power.com/nuclear-power/reactor-physics/...
nickpsecurity
I work for Indians. They often try to use other Indians for investing, repairs, and key positions. It's also mostly immigrants from one state. They dominate the hotel industry.
9283409232
I've been in meetings where we had minorities that killed the interviews but leadership gave us shifty reasons as to why they weren't hired. They landed on "bad cultural fit"
neverbehind
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Manuel_D
And one of my previous companies, Indian male applicants were categorized as "ND". Negative Diversity. Even less desirable than whites.
Your stories don't cancel out, they add up: most DEI programs I've seen have discriminated against Asians at least as much as whites if not more.
shakna
Cool. But DEI practices happened not because of anecdotes, but data on systemic bias - which endangers multiple generations of people. A responsible government will act on the data, rather than a gut feeling.
Manuel_D
> But DEI practices happened not because of anecdotes, but data on systemic bias
Often said. Rarely backed up by such data. Efforts to measure bias in tech has consistently shown preferences favoring women:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1418878112, the chart with the important data: https://www.pnas.org/cms/10.1073/pnas.1418878112/asset/fc20a...
Study on sending resumes to SV tech companies: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3672484, HN discussion on the paperhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25069644
Yet all the DEI programs I've seen firsthand have privileged women over men.
kelseyfrog
But anti-DEI policy allowed a group in the process of losing status to name and point to a target. The function of removing DEI is to relieve them of the feeling that their status was under attack.
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garciasn
This isn’t a gut feeling; it’s blatant racism and twisting the narrative around DEI to rile Trump’s xenophobic and racist base.
RHSeeger
I don't think anyone with a brain thinks that the DEI rules don't provide benefit to people of a minority at the expense of the people in the majority. But they also provide benefits to the minority as a whole against the system as a whole, to help raise them up from the lower starting point they been pushed into. And it's a balance between individual unfairness (negative impact to individuals of the majority) and systematic fairness (positive impact to the minorities as a whole). The end goal is that all groups start at the same point and the nobody needs to be given preference because of their group.
Anyone who thinks "you have to hire a certain amount/percentage of minorities" doesn't mean, by definition, that you will need to negatively impact _individual_ members of a majority hasn't spent any real time thinking about how it works. But the point is that it's worth it for society as a whole.
umvi
> But the point is that it's worth it for society as a whole.
Who decided/determined this? You state it as if positive discrimination is a proven social good, yet I don't think it's so clear. There's still a ton of debate around it, and different western countries have difference stances on it. To me it still seems like an experiment with unclear/unknown long term value to society.
FridayoLeary
It doesn't provide a benefit to the minority, just a small percentage of the minority who are middle class. And by downplaying the necessity for genuine merit, in order to fill quotas, you are doing a major disservice to those minority members who actually worked and earned their positions, because now they are lumped together with the "DEI" hires, who didn't.
Manuel_D
Then DEI proponents should be honest about the fact that DEI isn't about curbing discrimination, but deliberately engaging in positive discrimination.
One of the biggest things about the DEI discourse that puts me off is the dishonesty of it. Many, perhaps most, DEI advocates attempt to argue that policies like withholding executive bonuses if their org isnt X% women and Y% URM isn't discrimination. Heck, I've encountered one former co-worker argue that allocating a segment of headcout exclusive to women wasn't discrimination, because it's "extra" headcount. If I have 100 headcount and I prohibit men from 20 of them that's discrimination, but if I have 80 headcount and I add 20 "extra" heads exclusively available to women that's not discrimination, according to this former co-worker's logic.
It's one thing to advance a controversial policy and stand by it earnestly. It's another to advance a controversial policy while lying about it to people's faces. DEI is unfortunately often carried out via the latter fashion. And realistically, that's the only way it can be carried out under our present set of laws, because discrimination on the basis of race and gender are illegal nation-wide in the USA.
epistasis
That is illegal and they should have talked to HR about what DEI is, because it's certainly not that!
tehwebguy
I bet they were lying, or that you are!
winrid
I understand the concern, but I have no skin in the game to lie here. Actually it's fairly risky to say what I've said, but it frustrates me. Also, I do not think they would slip up and lie in such a way.
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aorloff
Ok great, and what ?
I spent 25 years in the industry and a dozen as a manager and I can tell you that straight up racism against black and latino people has been coddled and tolerated for a long time.
The solution isn't to say: we won't hire white people, but it is to say, we have to create teams that are heterogeneous (and doing what that takes).
Your personal anecdotes are not what makes up racism, writ large. And the fact that this has to be explained is, you know, the thing.
winrid
You said that my personal anecdotes don't matter while bringing up your personal anecdotes. I've personally never seen racism against Latinos or blacks during hiring.
Probably the the most diverse place I worked at had no such quotas.
My point is there shouldn't be hiring quotas by race.
jazzyjackson
Problem is if the talent pool is not heterogenous, for a litany of historical reasons, a hiring manager becomes tasked with waiting around for a candidate that meets a race quota, which one might consider exactly as racist as maintaining a race status quo.
eweise
I've spent at least that much time in the industry and never witnessed such discrimination.
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user3939382
If you think policies are named for what they actually are you’re going to be shocked at how legislation is titled.
tshaddox
Shouldn't forced policy changes be based on what the policies actually are instead of what they're named? Otherwise it would be permissible to simply change the name of the policy.
jvanderbot
Not to push back, just to add context: I'd wager about half of people would say that "DEI" is itself doublespeak. I don't agree with any of the strong opinions around this subject, but I can definitely say that we won't get far repeating the same old talking points.
nickpsecurity
It was made by people promoting intersectionality with redistributive "justice." It was often promoted and enforced by such people. Many consultants also have highly negative views of white people.
So, it's not speculation. What it does, taking away from one group to give to favored groups, is exactly what intersectionality/woke/etc called for.
mmooss
> taking away from one group to give to favored groups
That's right out of the playbook of how to promote racism and descrimination - tell people that the 'Blacks', etc. are taking their jobs. It literally goes back to the days of slavery, when they would turn poor whites against black slaves. God forbid the poor and oppressed got together; then they might vote out the wealthy and powerful.
DEI is not redistribution. It's eliminating bias that favors the powerful groups, mostly white guys, that have benefitted - many unwittingly - from that bias for all of US history. If you want your job on merit, if you want a fair chance rather than a handout, you should favor DEI. If you think there's no bias, you are living in a fantasy - it's gone on for centuries, the documentation and research are overwhelming, and it's boomed since 2016.
Spivak
My guy you clearly have no idea what intersectionality even means. Like this is firmly in the "not even wrong" territory where the word doesn't make sense in the sentence.
Intersectionality is a descriptive term to understand how a person's advantages (say from being white) and disadvantages (say from being gay) interact and how all the different combinations have unique struggles and challenges. It doesn't do or call for anything.
FridayoLeary
Maybe they feel that people should be selected for a job based on their merits alone, not the colour of their skin.
mmooss
That is the goal of DEI. The problem is, racism is widespread and people are selected based on non-meritorious reasons - in SV, white and East/South Asian men. Look at all those leading SV founders and CEOs - are there any exceptions at all?
Racism is not necessarily overt, but you certainly you are well aware that overt racism is widely trendy now, and people engage in it publicly. Look at the well-accepted virulant hatred toward immigrants, often based on transparent stereotypes (i.e., not individual merit at all). Many argue, even on HN, that white/Asian men are inherently superior at math/coding/etc., which is why they dominate SV. Do you think those people hire based on merit?
Racism can be unconscious. In hiring 101, you learn that people instinctively hire people like them. Even beyond that, people hire who they are comfortable with. It's not a secret that humans are uncomfortable with the unfamiliar, and that many white people are particulary uncomfortable around black people. People hire those who they are comfortable with, often without realizing why.
Racism can be systemic. If you grew up in a mostly segregated community, and went to school with those people, who will be in your personal/professional network to hire, or to call up with your investment or business idea, etc.? You didn't choose it; that's the system you grew up in. And unless you consciously change it (for example, via DEI), you will perpetuate it and the next generation will also be segregated.
People often don't intend to be racist; they just don't realize how it comes to pass. Most appreciate training in how to do better (who wouldn't?). Also consider that the small improvements from generation to generation are not nearly fast enough - the minority people of today, right now, deserve fair opportunities. It's absurd to tell them - your grandchildren will have a better chance.
marcuskane2
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mmooss
> Everyone knows that DEI is a dog whistle for discrimination against straight white males. (Or in some contexts, also white women or asian men).
Who is everyone? DEI was widely supported until very recently, when an oppressive government acted against it.
DEI is about making things fair in hiring and otherwise. For example, who gets into college? To a great extent, children of (almost entirely white) legacies, and of (almost entirely white) wealthy parents, and they go on to be the wealthy and powerful. How can we give minorities the same opportunities?
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decremental
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notsayinmch
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kryogen1c
Is English not your first language? That isn't double think.
If a law is passed requiring drug use to be prosecuted and making it illegal not to, you have criminalized decriminalization.
Just because words or concepts are opposed in isolation doesn't mean they can't appear in a sentence or thought together. That's not how grammar works, and it's not what 1984 is about.
blacksmith_tb
So newly-enlarged (and emboldened) ISPs will happily screw over white folks and people of color without a hint of bias, now that's what I call progress marching forward.
robert_foss
American institutions are truly being gutted and weaponized.
thrance
This is how mafia works. Be loyal, do the boss's bidding and you shall be rewarded. Slip and be sent to an El Salvador black site.
tootie
Carr has been pretty clear the FCC will do whatever Trump wants despite their status as an independent agency. Mergers and spectrum and whatever will be handed out to politically compliant outlets.
SimianSci
We commonly use the word 'tool' to describe such people because it is the best descriptor.
Carr has shown himself to be nakedly partisan, and at risk of doing serious damage to the industry. Anyone who believes otherwise should be referred to his consistent rhetoric that news agencies that show unfavorable coverage to the Trump administration will be investigated and brought to heel.
https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/brendan-carr-ta...
op00to
Hilarious that companies like Verizon get pushed around by dopes like Carr and Trump.
stackskipton
Companies will only fight back on things that impact their short-term bottom line.
Ending DEI is unlikely to impact their bottom line but mergers do so out with DEI programs they go.
rdtsc
> Companies will only fight back on things that impact their short-term bottom line.
The speed with which they all dropped DEI programs was shocking. Especially after years of saying how it's critical, it makes them more vibrant, stronger, etc. I guess they never believed any of that.
It seems Stripe CEO is the only one left wondering what the heck happened: https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2025/05/16/john-collison... ( https://archive.ph/5PFgq )
> “I am baffled by all the companies doing an about-face on their social initiatives right now. Did you not actually mean it in the first place? Either don’t do it, or do it and stay doing it, but don’t do this ‘DEI is cancelled now’,” he says. “It’s very odd to me.”
mizzack
The end of ESG investing and, yes, preference falsification and preference cascade. They never believed in it, it was just socially unacceptable to admit it until the pendulum swung back in the other direction.
tdeck
I think these companies found it harder to hire, and thus worked harder to look good to perspective employees. Now with the hiring market being reset in a way that favors employers, a lot of that is going away.
9283409232
Credit to him I guess. Someone should keep a list of companies that are sticking to their guns.
Verizon buying Frontier. Charter buying Cox.
So we're mostly down to AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Charter.
Verizon previously tried to merge with Charter back in 2017, but that didn't work out.[1]
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/verizon-is-exploring-combinatio...