Op-Ed: Time to declare independence from Big Tech’s tyrannical kings

June 24, 2026  |  By Laura Derrendinger

Weeks away from the 250th celebration of our nation’s founding – it is time to declare Vermont’s schools independent of “Big Tech.”

Today’s tyrannical kings – the online and digital product companies such as Google and Apple – maximize personal profits, infiltrate schools, and harm children by throwing them into the digital algorithmic machine. 

In March, a jury in California found Meta and Google, the owner of YouTube, liable for explicitly harming children. A New York Times investigative piece exposed how the tech tyrants plotted to capture students’ attention throughout the school day. Yet we’ve allowed the ubiquitous placement of Google’s products in front of nearly all Vermont schoolchildren. Google’s own internal documents show the company explicitly chooses to put Chromebooks in schools as a delivery mechanism for YouTube in order to build a reliable customer base of our kids. 

Our children and their school environments function as commercialized environments for predatory digital and online product company manufacturers at the expense of our children’s health and education. Vermont students should be free from commercial giants’ profit margins and commercialization. We support the use of digital and online products when independent research shows evidence of learning gains above the non-digital option, given the myriads of harm. Unfortunately, the commercial digital tech tyrants’ products do not meet this threshold, impelling us to separate. 

This past legislative session, our Vermont Coalition for Independence, Reconnection and Liberation advanced two policy priorities in Montpelier to release students from Big Tech’s grasp. Students and teachers should have the right to opt out of electronic device usage in school, especially as we know online crimes against children occur on school-issued computer devices during the school day. Second, EdTech products purchased by our tax dollars need regulation for safety and efficacy through an independent, transparent process. 

In our advocacy efforts, it became evidently clear that not all the king’s men wear red coats. In the pursuit of ensuring EdTech products are independently verified for safety and efficacy, education leaders testified before the Vermont House Commerce Committee that “in the educational technology space, Common Sense Media and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) are trusted sources of information.”  In the pursuit of independence, we call out the king’s mercenaries.

ISTE and Common Sense Media received money from and partnered with both Meta and Google. How would we respond if education leaders said the “International Society for Healthy School Lunch” (hypothetical organization to illustrate the point), funded by McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, was named as a trusted source to set school lunch menu standards? 

We wouldn’t expect Tobacco Free Kids to send us to websites of Philip Morris, Joe Camel, or Marlboro to advise on keeping kids safe from tobacco harms. This is like asking Budweiser to talk to parents and children about underage drinking. We should be shocked when the American Academy of Pediatrics sends parents to Snapchat (Snapchat Details and Available Settings) and Instagram for advice on how we should keep kids safe on social media. When corporate interests develop relationships with trusted messengers, we can be certain that recommendations by these trusted entities will serve the agenda of increasing company profits over the well-being of students. An essential playbook tool of the health-harming product industry ensures catastrophic capture of nonprofits that community members trust.   Vermont is not alone in efforts to dissolve the political bands that have connected “Big Tech” and schools. This 2026 legislative session alone, 17 states put forward legislation to regulate or study the effects of educational technology on students. 

In response, Big Tech’s mercenaries charged state capitols nationwide. Product defense aggressively protects products from policies that prioritize child/adolescent health and learning.

Product defense warfare operates in many health-harming product sectors: big sugar, tobacco, and oil. Product defense follows a consistent pattern to delay or prevent regulatory actions to protect the public. Our children and the school environment, commercialized by these digital and online product industries, suffer at the expense of their health and education. 

We submit a simple request: Question everything. 

Legislators and school leaders, with vigor and scrutiny, ask every entity that comes to you with policy feedback or recommendations to disclose how they are funded and who they have relationships with. If someone presents a source, vet that source and make sure it does not trace back to mercenary science for hire sources.  Pervasive corporate capture of trusted messengers prevents us from accessing the best outcomes for our children. We can only protect children by holding independence with the highest fidelity. 

Nonprofits and government institutions must divorce from corporate funding and influence that creates real or perceived bias in recommendations they give.  

No one policy tool will suffice to tackle this problem. We all understand this effort requires many levers working simultaneously to be most effective. In the pursuit of our children’s well-being and efforts to absolve our schools from their allegiance to the “Big Tech’s” crown of commercial interests, we name the red coats and identify the king’s mercenaries in this declaration for independence.  

Laura Derrendinger of Middletown Springs co-leads the volunteer Vermont statewide coalition for Independence, Reconnection and Liberation, supporting independent research-informed policy solutions to keep school students safe from harms created by digital and online product exposure. Vermonters from 100 towns have signed the community support letter proposing policy solutions addressing digital and online product regulation to protect children. More information: Read “The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception,” by Dr. David Michaels.