Education makes you more efficient at exploiting people, but it also makes you more efficient at detecting and resisting the exploits. While no one is immune to it because the most effective kinds of exploitation are emotional rather than rational (see both religion and populism,) a solid educational foundation by the public makes it more difficult for the elites - who will by definition always be educated - to manipulate the public.

I feel like you're just arguing around education being an issue. When people cheat at their education, the outcome is they aren't educated. They can't practice critical thinking without a framework for understanding the world and so all they have is unfocused cynicism, which social media is designed to readily exploit.