As you know, neither China, Cuba nor North Korea have a free press.
And those changes you describe are capitalist, not socialist, so they are not a rebuttal of the definition of socialisms. "Distribution" includes retail outlets. And "public ownership", in reality, means State ownership.
The State did wither away in Somalia.
They were not meant to be a rebuttal but to show what nations do in practice is not necessarily consistent with the economic philosophy they pretend to follow. It also shows any increased success of their economies is due to following more of a market economy with more private ownership. Distribution may mean retail outlets but many of those retail outlets are not state owned. For example, Alibaba is a private, for profit, company. Competition among different state owned enterprises creates a type of market economy. Locally owned businesses are pushed to make more profit.