Coinciding with a warning from the Portuguese secret service over the popularity of radical influencers, who are inciting hatred and violence, ‘influencer’ Tiago Grila is back in the news – this time for threatening a candidate in upcoming municipal elections with a gun.
Grila, best known for laughingly admitting in a podcast to a hit-and-run on a rainy night in Lisbon, has already been involved in skirmishes unrelated to the ‘main reason’ that he shot to notoriety in Portugal.
This latest is very much along the lines of an incident, also at a festival, during the summer. It took place last Monday at a ‘festa popular ’ in Sobral de Adiça, in Moura – and according to SIC, “the situation was resolved at the scene.
“But later, the influencer returned home and recorded a video which he published on Tik Tok in which he threatened the parish council employee, exhibiting a gun while he repeated his threats”.
It is not clear exactly how Grila came to be arrested, but he has been ‘heard’ by a public prosecutor at Moura court, and allowed to return home on the lightest of bail conditions (TIR – meaning he must stay living at his current address).
Later in the week, Grila was seen taking part in a CHEGA rally (for the municipal elections next Sunday), where he “greeted André Ventura”, says SIC.
Grila’s issues with the law will now run their course, but his situation appears to be an example of the phenomenon outlined by Portuguese homeland security last week, who warned about “the growing popularity of radical influencers who use the internet to promote discussions of hatred and violence, particularly among young people”.
According to Expresso, the phenomenon has come in the last couple of years, leading to a 65% increase in the number of complaints to the national centre for cybersecurity.
‘They have millions of followers in cyberspace, are idolised by many on Tik Tok, Instagram and social network ‘X’, and disseminate hatred and discrimination against immigrants and women’, says SIC, paraphrasing Expresso’s story.
According to Expresso’s source, there is a sentiment of impunity on the part of extreme right-wing influencers who use the internet for propaganda in a way that is reaching young people in schools “in a worrying manner”.
Source material: SIC/ Expresso
