Was Apple Daily regularly sharing outright falsified stories?

Yes, I dunno what you call regular, but they repeated taiwanese rumours that were vastly exagerated. In 2019 saying the police didnt kill 2000 people in secret would warrant you a slap in the street, because of these newspapers that were a bit... activist ?

Kids that were arrested were hollered by these Apple Daily journalists to display their ID card to the camera in case they disappeared, creating a climate were they felt like oppressed freedom fighters rather than overly violent political activists.

Honestly me and my wife, at the beginning of Jimmy Lai s arrest were relieved because we felt it could stop the insanity a bit. Ofc China will go too far as usual but that's the feeling some of us have. Dunno how common it is, as it's hard to discuss calmly in HK.

Either people feel their little pride shattered by all this anti China discourse, or they feel invaded and tortured by the fact we're a Chinese city. Hard to discuss a middle ground where we ignore each other like we've done for 2 decades.

There's no middle ground really: China has taken over, you have no rights. That's it.

If you speak ill of someone powerful, you'll disappear one way or another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Daily It's interesting that most people here don't read Apple Daily. Those who can read Apple Daily and know the real nature don't want to talk too much because the opinion doesn't align the majority of HNer's belief based on partial information.

It's a tabloid newspaper but more than that, it's full of hate and anger. That's its strength because there's a big market for it.