Critical thinking is universal though. It's not a necessity to have a solid judgment of a piece. "Critical abstention" is a possibility, and primarily formal analysis is another (eg. search for common communication red flags).

I don't think that the parent idea of removing likes and counts is realistic (in any imaginary scenario I can think of).

People everywhere are going away from this model as "experts" are consistently bribed through various means.

There is no good short-term fix. People need to become more educated and adapt. If the argument is that they can't, well, maybe our brains have been defeated entirely by advertising and messaging. It wouldn't be the first time a complex problem was mostly solved.