Let that sink in.

Here’s the thing: being a woman on the internet sucks sometimes. Like, a lot. Women are harassed constantly and viciously, often for no reason other than the fact that they’re female. Very few of us are immune; a recent study showed that nearly 76% of women under 30 who are online experience some form of abuse or harassment.

I’m sure a fair amount of the comments on Swift’s post were spammy or inappropriate or derogatory. I’m sure a fair amount of the comments were pieces of hate speech that deserved to be deleted. But how do we decide when a simple emoji counts as hate speech? How do we decide where the line is drawn between legitimate criticism and harassment?

How did we decide that celebrities—but only a select few—are above this? Instagram’s community guidelines clearly state that they protect “private individuals.” Swift is a public figure. Negative comments are what she signed up for when she signed up for fame. This isn’t an issue of protecting someone from pure hate speech: It’s an issue of coddling and protecting a privileged white celebrity from any vague form of negative sentiment.

Why is Instagram stepping into this particular situation when they did nothing for the slew of bee and lemon emojis against not only Rachel Roy but also her 16-year-old daughter after Beyoncé’s Lemonade dropped? What about all the trolls on Kesha’s account? What about the attacks (full of snake emojis, no less) on Kardashian? What about real, unfamous women who experience harassment on a daily basis?

If the hate toward Taylor Swift is the kind of content Instagram wants to censor, it needs to censor it for everyone—not just a few. When Leslie Jones can be called every racial slur in the book and has to sit back and take it, but Taylor Swift’s feelings are hurt by snake emojis and are therefore removed, that’s called white privilege. There is really no other way to describe it.

The selective action of intervening happening on Swift’s social media right now is real-time evidence of how Swift represents a dangerous form of white women. As journalist Damon Young says, we all know a woman like Swift: She twists situations to become the victim and gets preferential treatment, especially when pitted against people of color. Maybe that’s why we are so actively interested in this situation.

It’s not a funny thing to watch anymore. Not in this time of such elevated tension. Not in this time when white cops are shooting black men on camera and getting away with it. And certainly not in a time when your silence on the subject speaks volumes.

No, the white-female-victim game that Taylor Swift plays isn’t funny anymore, and it has passed the point of being tired and has veered into dangerous territory. She has millions of little girls looking up to her, and her actions leave lasting impressions. They have consequences.

Girls need protecting sometimes, yes, and the internet needs to be better about the harassment we face on a daily basis. But young girls also need to know that not everyone gets special treatment, particularly if they’re not white. Not everyone gets to behave badly without being held accountable. They need to learn that crying foul any time they feel wronged isn’t an automatic fix. That, when someone says something critical of them, the best response is to work hard, succeed, and prove them wrong, not to argue about character assassination.

Above all else, young girls need to learn how to be the heroines of their lives, not the victims. Unfortunately, that’s not the example Swift is portraying today.

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