The company’s own communication plan announces monitoring of publications. It is a “normal monitoring” of opinions.
A Metropolitan of Lisbon is closely monitor social media of various groups, including three activists, in a process related to the expansion of the red line between São Sebastião and Alcântara.
This monitoring is announced by Lisbon Metro itself in the communication plan of the aforementioned project, which reads that it analyzes several Facebook groups/pages: Movimento Salvar o Jardim da Parada; Campo de Ourique fans; We were born happy in Campo de Ourique; Campo de Ourique; and Neighbors of Alcântara.
This is because Metro feels that members of the “local population” who are “actively” against station positioning are “threats” to the expansion of the red line.
The newspaper reported that control of social networks has been taking place since 2022.
Only the Save the Parade Garden Movement appears as a movement specifically contra the expansion.
This movement includes the three activists Susana Morais, Suzana Marques and Margarida Vicente, who are against the construction of the Campo de Ourique metro station in Jardim da Parada.
The three activists from the Movement to Save Jardim da Parada were “shocked” with this information – and will present complaint to the Public Ministry and the National Data Protection Commission.
Jorge Bacelar Gouveia, constitutionalist, sees this control as something “quite bizarre” but that “it is certainly illegal and has criminal relevance”.
Hours later, Metro Lisboa denied any type of “undue surveillance or illicit” to the social networks of any party interested in the project to extend the Red line to Alcântara.
The company considers the use of terms such as “surveillance” and “special surveillance action” and their association with Metropolitano de Lisboa to be abusive.
Metro assures that what is at stake is “the normal monitoring and a analysis the references public made to the said project.”
The company analyzed opinions “in the media and social networks, by all interested parties, including citizens and groups of citizens, in particular those who contributed most to the public debate about this project”, reads in .
