I just a couple of days had a conversation with a Chinese friend about this (he is living in Sweden). Essentially he said that previously he thought free-media/

I just a couple of days had a conversation with a Chinese friend about this (he is living in Sweden). Essentially he said that previously he thought free-media/free-speech was something he understood, but did not consider terribly important for his own live (i.e. you still live a good live, the Chinese government was lifting the population out of poverty ...), but seeing the media and how they dealt with suppressing covid news (especially news how people with other conditions who did not get treated, that just disappeared from social media) he realised that this could easily affect him as well. So in summary it was not about that he didn't know that state media was manipulating the news, but more that the crisis showed how this could affect anyone.