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Comment by jmyeet | Hacker News Reader

And the FCC is completely correct in this, for two reasons:

1. ISPs have been given various money to roll out to those communities in many if not most cases. Currently, noncompliance is cheaper than doing what they said they'd do and were paid to do; and

2. The "rational" thing you point to allows racism by proxy. I mean, look up redlining. Systemic discrimination (of various kinds, not just race) gets more abstract but the end goals remain the same.

But really the FCC is trying to put a bandaid on a gaping wound: national ISPs shouldn't exist. The only good broadband is municipal broadband. Any "good" broadband we have now just isn't terrible yet and/or the provider has cherrypicked coverage in much the way you suggest, leaving many under-served communities.

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> I mean, look up redlining.

Redlining was just short of being explicit. But the racial covenants on home deeds were very explicit:

https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/covenants.htm

There's even crazier shit than that in US history which has led to where we are at now.

Red-lining is based on the inherently-racist premise that Black people moving into an area were likely to result in decrease of property value.

What we're talking about here is much simpler, basic economic stuff like "poor people can't afford expensive stuff" which doesn't demand any racial assumptions.

EDIT: I don't usually ask about down-votes, but for the people who are down-voting this comment, please explain why I'm wrong. The whole basis of the discussion here is that the 'disparate impact' standard is being used to criticize business decisions that are not based on racial inputs.

The difference is that modern broadband internet is more akin so a necessary utility like water or electricity than it is to luxury goods. Further that telecomms have received billions in subsidies to build out infrastructure to these communities and have lobbied against municipal competition.

If you put yourself in position of gatekeeper of an essential service then it's reasonable to put a burden on you to do due diligence to make sure that service is equally accessible.

Not to mention record profits, so it's not like these giants are hanging on by the skin of their teeth.

The government is not allowed to mandate racial discrimination/affirmative action in the United States. There is fairly clear caselaw on this, including the recent decision prohibiting even remedial discrimination (i.e. affirmative action).

As for the subsidies, the way they work is, roughly, the government offers you a certain amount of money to build an area, and if you don't, they either give you an extension or fine you or take the money back or some mixture of the three. There's also been reverse auction type approaches, where the government takes bids for people to build out to an area and awards the subsidy to the lowest bidder. It's not like the government just cuts AT&T a $10 billion check and says go forth and build broadband where you see fit. If you have a problem with how the subsidies work, then redesign them.

They are allowed to demand the the infrastructure they paid for be constructed and serviced.

Yes, they'd be totally in their rights to tell ISPs exactly where to spend the money, but that's not what's happening here. Here, they're telling the ISPs they have to set up an affirmative action regime or else they'll be punished.

> tell ISPs exactly where to spend the money

Thats what they are doing though.

You're mad they're being given more freedom on resource distribution? They can either tell the ISPs _exactly_ where to spend the money, or they can tell the ISPs to do some more due diligence about disparate impact and more equitably distribute the money. The FCC is doing the 2nd.

Yes, the ISPs HAVE ACCEPTED MONEY to set up an affirmative action regime. If they don’t deliver on something they have promised to do in exchange for taxpayer money already received they should be heavily, heavily punished.

That's blatantly and objectively wrong. The government isn't "mandating racial discrimination". They're fighting actual and de facto racial (and other) discrimination. For example:

- Housing discrimination through the Fair Housing Act [1]; and

- Racial discrimination in redistricting, affirmed by even this current Supreme Court [2].

[1]: https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/fair_housing_equal_opp/f...

[2]: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court...

The Commissioner Simington dissent at https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-398477A5.pdf covers this issue fairly well. The Fair Housing Act disparate impact rule has several constitutional safeguards, the only reason why the Supreme Court upheld it in the Inclusive Communities case, that this one does not. Most importantly, it has a defense for "legitimate, nondiscriminatory" business decisions, such that disparate impact protects people only from "artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary barriers." So you can comply by just making rational business decisions. Here, you can't, you have to take into account race because the only defense is "economic or technical infeasibility."

1. The issue is that the government gave away a ton of money without clear goals and deadlines. Private companies aren't an arm of the government that will do it's job for it. Retroactively adding these restrictions seems bad, as you've now changed the terms of the deal. The government got scammed and they should take the loss and do better next time.

2. The result being the same does not mean the goal is the same. I doubt ISPs are rubbing their hands and laughing at the struggle of minorities. It's simply not their job to care about them. See 1.

Further, there is nothing wrong with national ISPs as long as we don't put up road blocks for municipal ISPs.

> Further, there is nothing wrong with national ISPs as long as we don't put up road blocks for municipal ISPs.

In this reality, ISPs have put up road blocks for municipal ISPs.

In North Carolina it's especially shady-- any ISP can challenge by offering their own plan to wire up the municipality that wants to do their own wireless. Doing so can end up halting the municipal plan, but that ISP doesn't have to actually deliver said plan.

Wow, that’s impressively slimy. I don’t know it’s possible to defend telecoms pulling this kind of nonsense in good conscience.

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