On Friday night, a page called “NYU White Student Union” was created on Facebook. The group describes itself on Facebook as, “a community for NYU students of European descent.”

But the page, which has seen heavy backlash from the NYU community, is likely just a well-executed 4chan troll.

Facebook users who have “liked” the page are hidden. The page had around 60 likes Saturday night, and was up to over 200 likes by Sunday night.

The page’s anonymous admin said he would not reveal his identity because he said he feared for himself, his academic career and his family, but told Local via Facebook message that he was an NYU student from New Jersey. He claimed the group is made up of only a few NYU students, but that they had networked with other small groups at colleges across the country via the internet. He did not offer any definite confirmation that he was an NYU student.

In fact, the whole network might be fake. NYU’s White Student Union page is one of many eerily similar “White Student Union” Facebook groups that were created on or around Friday night for a variety of other universities. Many of these groups went live within hours of each other on November 20. These pages use the same phrases in their group descriptions, sometimes use J.C. Leyendecker paintings as cover photos for some reason, and post many of the same links (for instance, many pages posted this comic).

Beyond this circumstantial evidence, the creation of these pages coincides with an 8chan thread from Friday, which encouraged readers to make fake “White Student Union” pages on burner Facebook accounts. A writer for Neo Nazi blog “The Daily Stormer” called for similar action in a blog post posted on November 21.

The idea picked up steam on Sunday when a thread on the 4chan “politically incorrect” board encouraged readers to create “White Student Union” pages in bulk. A comment on a thread responding to a screenshot of a post on Berkley’s White Student Union page said that the pages were all part of an internet hoax called “#opeuropa” (or “Operation Europa”). Posters on the thread referenced NYU’s White Student Union page, and said the backlash to the pages would ultimately align students against Black Lives Matter and “SJWs” (Social Justice Warriors).

Currently there are few threads on 4chan about the hoax, with users posting screenshots and laughing at Facebook commenters in real time. A few 4chan users on the thread said they were targeting the most “SJW” schools, and well, that’s us!

The NYU White Student Union page’s description says that the group was inspired by the recently created White Student Union at UC Berkley. The admin for the NYU White Student Union page said he was not aware of 4chan, 8chan or the Daily Stormer’s post.

An admin from White Student Union at UC Berkley Facebook page told Local via Facebook message that they themselves were inspired to create their group by UCLA’s White Student Union page. An admin from UCLA’s White Student Union page said that they didn’t know much about the other pages, but that many similar pages had been inspired by their group’s page. Originally, Local got in contact with the admin of NYU’s White Student Union group through the admin of UC Austin’s White Student Union page, who said he “was in contact with those guys at NYU.”  

The White Student Union at Illinois is perhaps the most well known of the bunch, with coverage in The Washington Post among other news outlets. The page was deleted from Facebook after complaints from the University of Illinois, but re-emerged a few days ago with just under 5,000 likes to date. The University of Illinois is currently trying to get Facebook to re-delete the new page and any subsequent reboots due to the threatening nature of the original, which called on students who attended a Black Lives Matter protest to “send in pictures you take of any black protestors on the quad so we know who anti-whites are.”

The University of Illinois also sought to have the page removed due to violation of the university’s trademark. The NYU White Student Union page has featured two different versions of NYU’s logo as its profile picture, and has NYU’s name in its title. Representatives from NYU were not immediately available for comment.

So far the NYU White Student Union page has announced no public events, programming or meetings. Thus far the page has primarily shared links to news stories. The page has written in support of a Philly.com article from 1988 about a now-defunct White Student Union at Temple University and posted a Breitbart article attacking the Black Lives Matter movement at Dartmouth. The page has also criticized a CBS New York report about Rachel Dolezal and sought to debunk an old NYU Local article about diversity on campus.

The page also posted a link to a 2014 NYPD crime report, writing that white people were being demonized even though black people commit most crimes. The page has since deleted the post.

“I decided to delete it because I agreed with criticisms that it is not helpful to the message at this time,” the page’s admin told Local via anonymous Facebook message. “While I do think that crime by nonwhites is an issue, and that the fact that white people are disproportionately the victims of crime and not its perpetrators is important, unfortunately this is going to now be the focus rather than the important message of positivity about whiteness.”

Responses from Facebook users commenting on the page’s public wall are overwhelmingly negative. Several Facebook users posted on the page asking if the page was serious, with others simply condemning the page or posting links to stories contradicting the page’s narrative. At least one Facebook user attempted to have the page reported to Facebook, but Facebook concluded that the page did not contain hate speech or symbols and did not violate community standards. Discussion also raged about the page on other parts of Facebook, particularly the NYU Class of 2019 page.

wait so tell me again how a page called NYU WHITE STUDENT UNION doesn’t violate your standards, @facebook? pic.twitter.com/ZlNEHjjRpZ

— Jarry (@jarry) November 22, 2015

On Sunday evening, the page posted a status saying it has, “received several threatening and racially charged messages since we decided to publicly reveal the existence of our group” and that private weekly meetings, which had never previously been mentioned, were canceled this week due to security concerns and the holidays.

When asked about who was specifically invading and degrading white institutions and cultural heritage, the White Student Union admin said, “As far as the most obvious invasion, we right now have the refugee invasion of Europe which threatens to replace the indigenous people of the continent and is inherently genocidal if in fact we are to believe UN numbers that Europeans are expected to become minorities in their own lands by 2050. This is extremely concerning. Outbreeding and low birth rates also plague our culture. Social drop outs, people obsessed with video games and porn and drugs are other serious issues.”

As of Sunday night, new White Student Union groups keep popping up for different schools, but its not clear if its more trolls or actual people who believe in these ideas.

[UPDATE 11/23/15, 11am] NYU spokesperson Matt Nagel emailed Local the following statement:

“An anonymous person or group has started an unauthorized and highly objectionable “NYU White Student Union” Facebook page; these kinds of pages have cropped up at a number of universities that have sought to have a real dialogue about race and inclusion.  There is no such organization as this at NYU, the Facebook page is using NYU’s logo illegally and without permission, and we have contacted Facebook to demand the NYU logo be removed.  We reject — and we call on others to reject — efforts such as this to derail or distort candid, thoughtful discourse on race.

[Image via Facebook]