rather than advocating for an approach that seeks to find ways to limit media freedoms. Thus, before we can discuss how to legally deal with harmful manipulative speech, I would argue that we need to understand their cultural and historical trajectories; to find context-bound legal and political solutions for the protection of human rights abuses affected by harmful disinformation. Altogether, the three examples of manipulative political communication in Southeast Asia generally challenge the academic quest for a universal conceptualization of hate speech throughout world regions. In light of the selected national examples, where cultural conceptions impact what is considered a threat to media freedom and those which are not, we should also address the question of whether or not a Eurocentric perspective on how free and plural publics should function is helpful for a more general analysis of media freedom statuses and limitations. Winter 2019 | 86