Somehow I doubt this. Only a few days ago when the news of school shooting broke out, China had a similar incident a day later where a man stabbed/injured 22 children. However, that story was quickly snuffed and the only place you could find out about it was on China's twitter (weibo). I doubt one man could easily hand over the reigns of the media.

Maybe it was suppressed but not for nefarious reasons?

Probably part of the reason that these attacks take place is due to the desire of the perpetrator to rip a big hole in peoples comfortable everyday existence. A response to this is to suppress news of these attacks. In a western democracy this is not really an option. I'm not saying that I think that these events should not be reported, but they are massively sensationalised by western media and this is not always necessarily helpful in the long run as it glorifies these acts in the eyes of future potential perpetrators when they see the impact they could have on public consciousness.

I don't want government censorship of the media, but I'm also not comfortable with the way the media behaves, speaking as a citizen of the UK. I don't know what the solution is to balance the two extremes.

I don't think the order would be "everybody is free to broadcast everything they want from now on", these things take time. An actual incident is an actual incident, a fantasy film is just that: a fantasy. Also, reactions to live events are much more "automatic" than broadcasting a film released years ago and that has, likely, cleared a number of censorship checks at high levels.

Interesting, I didn't know that story was buried. People have been advocating downplaying the role of the killer in the recent Kindergarten massacre and focusing on the victims in the fear that the attention paid to the killer would promote copycats. However, burying the whole Kindergarten story was not suggested.

At least in China, the "people" network is usually more trustworthy than the major media outlets. I can understand from the western perspective that we should be doubting social media first. People were posting pictures of the injured children. It's possible that the photos were doctored, but I doubt anyone would go to great lengths doing it. Also, when you stab 22 children, I'm sure it will be big local news at least...

"At least in China, the "people" network is usually more trustworthy than the major media outlets"

Is it? When last I checked, the Chinese government paid tens of thousands of shills to post propaganda on blogs and forums.

Really? (with regard to in the west) Most of the social network 'news' I see is total crap. The stuff of chain-mails, rumour and heresay. When a major story breaks in the west the traditional media, despite biases in one way or another, seem to have the same pace and at least a much information.

Plus, I know who to blame when the information is wrong if it comes from a traditional outlet

I guess it depends what you categorize as social media. I think bloggers also fall into the social media camp. There's a very thin line between bloggers and journalists. Would you say the bloggers on huffington post talk chain-mails and heresy? I think in China the big name bloggers are probably equally respected as any journalist would be.

I'm slightly doubtful that someone would create a fake scene of 22 kids who got stabbed, for the purposes of social media juice.

I tend to agree with pretoriusB re the HuffPo. I also think bloggers/the new 'blogger-journalist' are more suited to investigative and opinion pieces rather than the breaking news o the day. Certainly you are right that there is a fine line between blogging and journalist.

With regard to 22 children stabbed, I agree that I don't think someone has made this up. But this is in china, not in the west, and as other posters have noted and I tend to agree having spent some time in china (well.. A couple kf weeks) that social media >> their state outlets. There are numerous instances of weibo being used to circumvent state censorship, despite being censored itself- the enterprising Chinese netizens use alliteration and 'read between the lines' to overcome this.

>Would you say the bloggers on huffington post talk chain-mails and heresy?

Huffington Post? That's the worst kind of BS blogging and bad journalism. If HP's your idea of "social media", then they are far worse than traditional media...

You have never seen a "chemical trails used to control thought", "revolutionary air fueled engine" and "this guy is sick now and needs blood before May 1999" on social media?