The Cost of Unearned Authority
There is a difference between having a platform and being qualified to influence life-altering decisions. Pretending otherwise has consequences.
I was struck this morning by a Toronto Star investigation into a stillbirth following the involvement of an unregulated “traditional birth companion,” a role the mother found and trusted through Instagram. The story is tragic. It is also instructive.
At its core, this is not a story about social media, alternative birth, or personal choice. It is a story about what happens when projected confidence persuades before competence is evaluated, and when marketing fills the space where professional guardrails once stood.
Confidence does not operate as a credential so much as a spell. When people feel unseen, overwhelmed, or poorly served by traditional systems, the assurance projected by a confident figure can feel stabilizing, even when it is unearned. That sense of reassurance often settles emotion before reason has had a chance to engage. By the time scrutiny arrives, trust has frequently already been granted.
Emotion plays an important role here. Decisions made in moments of fear, vulnerability, or disillusionment are not unusual, but they are often less reasoned than decisions made once emotional intensity has subsided. Emotion lowers our defenses. When reassurance, belonging, and emotional validation are offered quickly, critical evaluation can follow too late. Certain forms of social media marketing are particularly adept at exploiting this dynamic, and in high-stakes contexts, the resulting imbalance can have serious consequences.
Many adults were never taught the kind of media literacy this moment requires. For decades, access to a public platform involved friction. Editorial oversight, institutional reputation, paid placement, and journalistic ethics imposed limits. Those limits did not guarantee truth, but they slowed the spread of unearned authority. Today, they are largely gone. Reach is inexpensive. Verification is optional. Social proof in the form of followers, testimonials, and apparent expertise can be manufactured with ease.
In regulated professions, expertise is not self-declared. It is tested, constrained, and challengeable. In law and medicine, an expert is not someone who speaks fluently or projects confidence. It is someone whose qualifications, methodology, and limits can withstand scrutiny. That friction exists for a reason.
Unregulated spaces remove it entirely. Visibility becomes credibility. Projected confidence becomes trust. The burden of discernment shifts away from systems designed to protect the public and onto individuals who are not always equipped to fully assess the risk.
What makes this especially dangerous is not always bad faith. Some of the most persuasive voices genuinely believe what they are saying. Unaware of their own limitations, they speak without hesitation. In serious fields, hesitation is often the mark of responsibility.
The College of Midwives’ decision to pursue legal action in this case matters. Not as punishment, but as a reminder that regulation is not about control. It is about containment. It exists to protect people when the cost of error is too high for improvisation.
This pattern is not confined to healthcare. It appears anywhere marketing skill is rewarded faster than mastery, and where the consequences of being wrong are borne by someone else.
The solution is not cynicism. It is discernment.
Not every voice requires amplification.
Not every guide should lead.
And not every opinion deserves the weight of consequence.
When decisions carry irreversible risk, influence becomes an ethical act, whether the person wielding it acknowledges that responsibility or not.
