Before the internet, information consumers relied on experts whose reputation and integrity supported the plausibility of the information they provided. Trust in these sources grew over time as the experts were credited with multiple examples of delivery of true information. There were a limited number of information experts available to most information consumers, making the selection of trusted sources relatively easy. Advanced education degrees and training certificates provided experts with almost automatic credibility and were used to indicate expertise on a specific topic.

With the advent of the internet, the availability of information has grown exponentially, along with the numbers of so-called experts. Many internet ‘experts’ are unknown and their expertise and the sources of their information are often hard to substantiate. Degrees in higher education and training certificates can be faked. This makes it difficult to know who to trust when expertise is called for.

The aggressive rejection of expertise was seen on the world stage in the recent past. The group promoting Brexit in the UK, for example, suggested that the general population of the UK had had enough of experts. People were instead encouraged to go with their gut feeling or to do their own research. During his 2016 US Presidential campaign, Donald Trump essentially told voters that he would remove experts from positions of power and replace them with nonexperts. The rejection of expertise in these examples clearly appealed to some people.

According to Alain Julliet, ‘20% of all information available is incorrect, be it deliberately or unwittingly’ (Julliet, 2014, xii). This statistic should give pause to everyone, no matter what information is being considered.