It all depends on the scale, and location in real life. If it is a big enough event, in which more can be shared via the people, or in a location where the people are driven to communicate what they're experiencing - that it provides news greater in perspective than what a selection of biased companies can give, it will happen. Unless you live in North Korea.
Yes. In this case, one of the benefits of news being shared on a large platform was that there were people sharing about the needs of the blood donation centers in real time. Since there were people right there, they could share with a wider audience about how people could help in the crisis. One of the huge criticisms in that debacle was that some of those helpful posts were deleted in the midst of everything else going on. However, when it's working the way it should, there can be benefits to getting information from a large platform where people can share their experiences of an event with people who are actually there in real time.