I can’t be the only one feeling this way. Covering tech and telecom has always been a test of patience, with change in telecom especially moving at a glacial pace. But lately it’s starting to feel like a test of ethics, of how much I’m willing to point out the damage I see happening.
To put it bluntly, I'm getting the ick.
Take, for instance, what just happened with Verizon. A company that usually inches forward like it has arthritic knees suddenly sprinted to ditch its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in order to win regulatory approval for its $20 billion deal to acquire Frontier.
And lest you think I’m picking on Verizon, they’re not alone. T-Mobile made a similar move to get its Lumos transaction approved.
These two examples are a direct result of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr’s decision to actively investigate companies who haven’t proactively ditched their DEI programs. These programs, by the way, aren’t inherently illegal, despite President Donald Trump’s assertions to the contrary.
As a more articulate colleague put it, it feels “like our ethics were just fake all along. We dumped them in a heartbeat.”
It’s hard not to take that personally, even if deep down I knew it to be true the whole time.
There were plenty of times I knew I was recruited to moderate a panel solely so there was a woman present in the discussion. But until very recently – when we added the formidable Dan Jones and Mitch Wagner to our roster – Fierce Network’s editorial team was entirely comprised of women.
And you the readers trusted us, trusted our coverage and news judgement, right? Right?
The ick factor
Then there’s the ick-factor of what’s happening in the cloud and AI realm right now. The whole Saudi Arabia clusterfluff is a perfect example.
In case you’re out of the loop, the country is planning to spend huge chunks of change to build up its AI muscle via something called the HUMAIN initiative. That name, though undoubtedly intended more to incorporate “AI” than to sound like “humane,” is ironic considering Saudi Arabia’s dismal record on human rights.
Money, apparently, is enough for U.S. government and tech and AI industries to swallow not only Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses, but also its alleged involvement in both the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. That used to be a dealbreaker for Trump, but apparently not anymore. Tech is more than happy to follow his lead, it seems.
Cisco’s CEO Chuck Robbins on its earnings call this week sounded absolutely giddy when talking about the hundreds of billions of dollars Saudi Arabia is planning to invest. Meanwhile, the CEOs of Amazon, OpenAI, Nvidia, and IBM as well as the CIO of Google tagged along on Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia like dogs at his heel. But don’t worry. It may have been humiliating for them but they ate well, at least.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at this turn of events since – circling back to my earlier point – Amazon and Google were among the first to start scrubbing DEI from their websites right after Trump’s inauguration.
But God bless Light Reading’s Iain Morris for similarly calling out this truly shameful behavior (seriously, go read that). I owe him one for making me feel a little less like the embodiment of the “hysterical woman” trope.
I could keep going, but really what I’m trying to say is, it’s like the industry is taking off a mask. And I don’t like what’s underneath even though I knew it was there all along.
Op-eds from industry experts, analysts or our editorial staff are opinion pieces that do not represent the opinions of Fierce Network.