 In both cases you have acquired testimonial knowledge. But in the second case it seems like your belief is better off, epistemically speaking. This is because in the first case your belief is based on the testimony of a layman who is somewhat knowledgeable about the topic at hand, whereas in the second case your belief is based on the testimony of an epistemic authority (or, someone who is both your epistemic superior and an expert about the domain in question). (See Zagzebski 2012; Jäger 2016; Croce 2018; and Constantin &amp; Grundmann 2020 for more on how the notion of an epistemic authority should be understood.)