The aim with this paper is to explore the question what critical thinking might mean in a media and information literacy (MIL) context, and do so by investigating how critical thinking is expressed in three reports that relate MIL to radicalization awareness and counter extremism. The purpose is to engage with recent debates about MIL and new research on critical thinking, and contribute to a grounded and theoretically informed foundation for discussing MIL competences. The analysis shows how critical thinking for the most part was referred to in casual terms together with concepts such as democracy, creativity, citizenship. Those descriptions that were more detailed and concrete about what to expect from critical thinking in a MIL-framework come close to what can be described as a gnostic influence: critical thinking as a skill to reveal hidden meanings, to see through propaganda and flawed arguments. In other words, a critical thinking that asks people to doubt what they see.  This understanding is problematized in relation to writings on media literacy and critical thinking.