To the outside world, the Netherlands is a rich and diverse country, embracing values of equality and acceptance of differences, even if some cracks are visible every year during the heated discussions about blackface and Zwarte Piet. However, the inside reality is quite different. Because Dutch is a relatively obscure language for most of the outside world, much of what is reported in the international media about the Netherlands misses the daily grievances experienced by minorities. The latest scandal to shake up the Dutch media landscape is no exception.

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It all started a few weeks ago when Rosanne Hertzberger, a white columnist for the Dutch newspaper NRC, pointed out ingrained and violent misogyny against women on the shock blog Geenstijl (No Style), which is owned by the biggest media company in the Netherlands, Telegraaf Media Groep. Geenstijl is described as a mixture of 4chan, right-wing agitation and racist provocations. It is extremely popular among younger white men who share a disdain for “political correctness” and an affinity for racial and sexist bigotry. The blog’s political influence cannot be easily dismissed: It was behind the initiative that resulted in a referendum for the European Union’s treaty with Ukraine and eventually spun off into an official political party that presented candidates in the most recent Dutch elections. Hertzberger’s column was followed by another piece at de Volkskrant, calling for an advertising boycott on the basis that the blog incites violence against women.

Soon after, 100 prominent and mostly white women, co-signed a letter asking corporations not to advertise in Geenstijl due to the constant rape fantasies being doled out on women journalists who expressed opinions contrary to the shock blog’s views. In turn, the employees of the blog’s parent company reacted with an appropriate meltdown: They cried censorship and claimed that they were victims of media silencing, saying that the women in question were trying to bankrupt a powerful media business with their “hysterical” denunciations of sexual violence and misogyny.

On an almost daily basis, these same Dutch media corporations use harmful language to discuss people of color, migrants, asylum-seekers and anyone who actively advocates for these groups under the pretense of “freedom of speech,” yet barely an eyebrow is lifted. But now that Dutch white women have been victimized all of a sudden Geenstijl has “crossed a line” and is deserving of an advertising boycott.

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In 2015, the NRC used the N-word in a headline to refer to Ta-Nehisi Coates, and the outside world got a taste of the way that Dutch media refers to black people in the country. Geenstilj, now under fire for its treatment of white women, has for years mounted hate campaigns against non-white activists, journalists and pretty much anyone who is at odds with its right-wing ideologies. Last year, when Geenstijl viciously attacked journalist Seada Nourhussen, demanding she lose her job at a competing publication, no calls for an advertising boycott were made. When activist and teacher Arzu Aslan was subjected to racist attacks and demands for her firing, there was hardly any outcry from mainstream media. In both cases, misogyny and violent sexual threats were deployed as well. When employees of Telegraaf Media Groep harassed Quinsy Gario in his home, in an attempt to further demonize him as an “angry black man,” there was little outrage.