However, Autonomia Operaia was not related to and certainly did not direct the Red Brigades, as was claimed by the prosecution at the 7 April 1979 trial of Antonio Negri and other arrested intellectuals and activists involved in Autonomia Operaia and Potere Operaio during the 1970s. This fact was recognized by the Italian legal system when all charges of membership and direction of the Red Brigades were dropped on appeal. Nevertheless, the myth still persists today, mainly due to some unscrupulous journalism, that Autonomia Operaia and the Red Brigades were one and the same organization. Overall, it would be better to think of Autonomia Operaia as a decentralized network or archipelago of various types of very localized autonomist social movements and organizations, than one integrated social movement at the national level.