In a landmark judgement handed down last week, a Hong Kong judge found that independent online media outlet Stand News had become a tool to smear and vilify authorities in Beijing and the city during the 2019 protests and unrest. The District Court last Thursday found former Stand News editors Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, and the outlet’s parent company Best Pencil, guilty of “conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious materials.” It was the first such conviction of journalists since Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997. In his 127-page Chinese judgement, Judge Kwok Wai-kin outline…