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"RadioText-RadioSoftware (1983–1989)": The First (Forgotten) Radio Programme of Computer Science Dissemination in Italy SOURCE: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/radiotext-radiosoftware-19831989-first-forgotten-sardella-ph-d--eqief/ Radiosoftware represents Italy's absolute pioneer in broadcasting digital literacy education over the airwaves in the Belpaese. Abstract This paper reconstructs the history of Radiosoftware, the first Italian radio programme which anticipated by over a decade the dissemination of microtelematics, computing, and digital technology, as well as modern methods of digital software distribution. Established in 1983 at Radio Popolare and subsequently developed as a national initiative on Rai Radio 3 from 1984 to 1989, Radiosoftware represents the first Italian radio programme to broadcast educational content and transmit executable software for home computers over the airwaves. Through analysis of its technical evolution, educational content, and cultural impact, this article demonstrates how the initiative constituted a significant precedent in national computer literacy, the democratisation of access to software, and the development of amateur programming communities, establishing itself as the progenitor of a media ecosystem dedicated to technological dissemination that has extended into the contemporary era. Keywords: history of Italian computing, technological dissemination, digital broadcasting, computer literacy, Radio Popolare Introduction: The Dawn of Computing Dissemination in Italy In the landscape of Italian digital media history, a fundamental chapter remains little explored in academic literature: that of computing dissemination through radio broadcasting in the 1980s. In an era characterised by the absence of network connectivity and economic and geographical barriers to accessing computer technologies, radio configured itself as a democratic instrument for the diffusion of nascent digital culture. Radiosoftware emerges in this context as an absolutely pioneering initiative in Italy, anticipating not only analogous Italian experiences but also positioning itself amongst the first European experiments in software transmission over the airwaves. Its genesis at Radio Popolare in 1983 and subsequent evolution as a national programme on Rai Radio 3 bear witness to a trajectory of technical and pedagogical innovation that merits in-depth analysis. Contenuto dell’articolo The Original Phase: Radio Popolare (1983) The birth of Radiosoftware at Radio Popolare in 1983 constitutes the foundational moment of radio-based computing dissemination in Italy. In a period when personal computers still represented niche objects, the programme set out to systematically explore programming languages, hardware architectures, and practical applications of home computing, addressing a heterogeneous audience composed of students, teachers, hobbyists, and professionals. This first incarnation established the conceptual paradigms that would characterise the entire subsequent tradition: linguistic accessibility, pedagogical vocation, attention to the social and cultural dimensions of technology, and promotion of active listener participation. Contenuto dell’articolo The National Evolution: From Radiotext to Radiosoftware (1984–1989) The experience gained at Radio Popolare found systematic development in the national initiative coordinated by Rai Radio 3. The pilot phase, denominated Radiotext, commenced on 11 May 1984 as an experimental segment within the current affairs programme Un certo discorso, presented by Pasquale Santoli. Eight 30-minute episodes, broadcast on Fridays at 16:00 with Sunday repeats, tested the technical feasibility and public interest in the transmission of executable software through audio signals. Curated by Luigi Grimaldi and Giovanni Sighele of the Lega Informatica of Florence, in collaboration with Arci Media, the pilot phase demonstrated the viability of the concept. In autumn 1984, the format consolidated with the definitive denomination Radiosoftware, expanding to one-hour episodes and maintaining its placement within Un certo discorso. Contenuto dell’articolo The third season, inaugurated on 7 February 1986, introduced a thematic structuring articulated in three distinctive segments: "Hard & soft news" (updates and reviews), "Studiare con il computer" (educational applications), and "Radio + informatica" (experimental intersections between broadcasting and computing). This phase evidenced a growing pedagogical sophistication and greater attention to formal educational applications. In late 1986, the programme acquired editorial autonomy, transforming into an independent transmission with nocturnal weekend scheduling. 1987 marked a significant technical innovation with the introduction of the 4800 bit/s hardware interface developed by the RAI Research Centre in Turin, which enabled direct connection to the RS-232 serial port, overcoming the limitations of the audio-cassette method. The concluding phase, from February to June 1989, adopted a brief daily format (10 minutes, Monday to Friday at 19:45), concentrating on MS-DOS-compatible software. Despite the announcement of a cycle for 1990, no national transmission is documented beyond June 1989. Contenuto dell’articolo The Audio-Cassette Method (1984–1987) The initial methodology replicated the cassette loading mechanisms typical of 1980s home computers. Programmes were encoded as sequences of audio impulses—electronic noises incomprehensible to the human ear—which listeners recorded onto blank audiocassettes by connecting a tape recorder to the radio's audio output. The recorded cassette was subsequently played through the computer's cassette interface, which decoded the signals, loading the software into memory. This approach, based on modulation techniques similar to frequency-shift keying (FSK), guaranteed compatibility with heterogeneous platforms such as the ZX Spectrum 48K, Commodore 64, Olivetti M10, subsequently extended to the Apple II, MSX, BBC Micro, Olivetti M24 and M28. Each episode transmitted sequentially platform-specific versions for each system. Whilst accessible and revolutionary for mass distribution in pre-Internet Italy, this method presented significant limitations: low transmission speed, susceptibility to errors induced by radio interference or ambient noise, and the necessity for precise volume and timing adjustments. Contenuto dell’articolo The RAI-Radiosoftware Hardware Interface (1987) In 1987, the RAI Research Centre in Turin developed an advanced interface documented in CCIR reports as the RAI-Radiosoftware system. The principal innovation consisted of direct transmission at 4800 bits/s utilising biphase modulation organised in packets, enabling connection to the computer's RS-232 serial port without cassette intermediation. The interface was designed for operating system independence, with management software adaptable for MS-DOS, CP/M, and potential future extensions to Macintosh. For Olivetti M24 and M28 computers, a version with an internal card was available. The Research Centre additionally developed management software, test cassettes, and manuals, considering initial commercialisation at approximately 90,000 lire. This technical evolution represented a significant advancement in terms of speed, reliability, and usability, whilst maintaining the audio-cassette method in parallel to guarantee universal access. Contenuto dell’articolo Types of Software Transmitted The catalogue of software distributed through Radiosoftware reflected a broad range of applications: practical utilities (thematic databases on fashion, music, itineraries, and personalised diets), educational tools (didactic programmes for secondary schools, upper secondary schools, and conservatoires), recreational software (games such as the Olympic pentathlon for the Commodore 64), graphic demonstrations, and creative tools (bases for musical composition and digital comics). Particularly significant was the introduction, from the third season onwards, of educational software developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Education, designed specifically for scholastic use across various disciplines, not limited to computing. Contenuto dell’articolo Community Participation: The ORSA Section The Osservatorio Radiofonico del Software Autoprodotto (ORSA) [Radio Observatory of Self-Produced Software], reintroduced in the third season from February 1986, constituted a space dedicated to the transmission of programmes created by listeners. This feature transformed Radiosoftware into a bidirectional platform, anticipating collaborative logics that would characterise, decades later, open-source communities and participatory digital cultures. The "listeners' post" section within "Hard & soft news" additionally facilitated continuous dialogue with the public, integrating feedback, questions, and suggestions into the programming. Questionnaires distributed at the end of cycles and surveys conducted by specialist magazines such as Sperimentare con l'elettronica e il computer provided further mechanisms for evaluation and editorial orientation. Contenuto dell’articolo Institutional Collaborations and School Experiments In 1987, Radiosoftware collaborated with the ITIS Enrico Fermi in Rome to produce a series of transmissions dedicated to the development and application of educational software in scholastic contexts. The initiative involved experimental reception centres in 60 Italian schools, where students and teachers utilised the specialised interfaces developed by the RAI Research Centre to capture and load directly the transmitted software. These experiments positioned Radiosoftware as an operational instrument of pedagogical innovation, extending its impact beyond the hobbyist user base towards formal integration within the national education system. Contenuto dell’articolo Comparison with European Experiences Although Radiosoftware represents the first Italian national initiative, it was not the first European experiment in radio transmission of software. In the Netherlands, the programme Hobbyscoop on the public broadcaster NOS began transmitting computer programmes via radio around 1979–1980, subsequently developing the Basicode standard (from 1982). This standardised format utilised a restricted subset of BASIC commands and platform-specific translation routines, guaranteeing portability across heterogeneous architectures through FSK modulation at 1200 bps. Contenuto dell’articolo In the United Kingdom, The Chip Shop on BBC Radio 4, presented by Barry Norman and launched in 1984, included a "takeaway" service that transmitted Basicode programmes during nocturnal hours on VHF. Contenuto dell’articolo Technical and Cultural Differentiation Unlike approaches based on Basicode, which privileged portability at the interpreted language level, Radiosoftware transmitted platform-specific executable files, often in machine code, encoded as audio tones analogous to cassette loading signals. This choice reflected different priorities: maximising performance and the specific capabilities of each architecture rather than guaranteeing universal compatibility through a standardised language. The subsequent introduction of the 4800 bit/s interface with RS-232 connection represented a further differentiation, bypassing cassette recording entirely. These technical specificities bear witness to an autonomous development pathway, oriented towards the characteristics of the Italian computing market and ecosystem. Contenuto dell’articolo Transition towards Telesoftware Between 1988 and 1989, Radiosoftware was progressively accompanied and superseded by telesoftware transmitted through Televideo, RAI's teletext system. Technically defined by the RAI Research Centre in collaboration with Olivetti, the system became operational in 1989 following scholastic experiments coordinated with the Ministry of Public Education and Seleco in 1988. Telesoftware represented a natural evolution that shifted distribution from radio to television, offering advantages in terms of bandwidth capacity and already widespread reception infrastructure. This transition reflected broader trends in media convergence and the evolution of digital broadcasting technologies. Contenuto dell’articolo Obsolescence and the Rise of the Internet The emergence of the Internet in the 1990s rendered obsolete both radio-based and teletext-based methods of software distribution. Bidirectional digital networks offered incomparable speed, scalability, and interactivity, radically transforming the paradigms of software access and distribution. However, the conceptual legacy of Radiosoftware persists: the idea of mass distribution of executable digital content through broadcasting channels anticipated logics that re-emerge in modern over-the-air distributions of firmware and software updates for mobile devices and IoT. Contenuto dell’articolo The Ecosystem of Italian Radio-Based Computing Dissemination COMPLETE TIMELINE From the birth of computing dissemination on radio to the contemporary digital ecosystem 🟦 1983 — THE ORIGIN Radiosoftware – Radio Popolare (1983) The first Italian programme entirely dedicated to computing, programming languages, and personal computers. The absolute progenitor of the Italian tradition of radio-based technological dissemination. 🟦 THE 1980s — THE FIRST HEIRS 1984–1989 — Bit, Byte & Musica – Radio Popolare Technology, electronics, early networks, hacker culture. Continues the pioneering spirit of Radiosoftware, exploring the countercultural and communal dimensions of nascent computing. 1987–1990 — Decoder / Cyberpunk – Radio Popolare First systematic discussions of BBS, cryptography, alternative telematics, anticipating themes that would become central in the Internet era. 🟩 THE 1990s — THE INTERNET ERA 1993 — Golem – Radio3 Critical reflection on media and digital technologies, situating technological transformation within a broader cultural and philosophical framework. 1994 — Eta Beta – Radio1 Innovation, information society, digital transformation. Technological dissemination for a general audience in the phase of initial digital literacy. 1995 — Internetworkcity – Radio Deejay Presented by Claudio Cecchetto and Marco Camisani Calzolari, represents the first pop-commercial programme dedicated to the Internet, introducing email, websites, chat, and cyber culture to the mass public with accessible language and a massified educational approach. 1996–1999 — Mediamente (radio version) – RAI Dissemination on the Internet, networks, digital culture, with particular attention to the social and cognitive implications of emerging technologies. 1997–2000 — Cybernet / Tecnologie e Libertà – Radio Sherwood Free software, digital rights, civic networks. Continuation of the critical and communal tradition inaugurated by Radio Popolare, with focus on the political and libertarian dimensions of technology. This timeline evidences how Radiosoftware does not represent an isolated phenomenon, but rather the point of origin of a continuous tradition that has traversed over four decades. From the programming languages and over-the-air software transmission of the 1980s, through explorations of BBS and alternative telematics, to mass literacy on the Internet in the 1990s and critical reflections on free software and digital rights, a connecting thread emerges that testifies to the role of radio as a privileged space for the cultural mediation of emerging technologies. Contenuto dell’articolo Contemporary Recognition and Archival Preservation In recent years, Radiosoftware has acquired renewed attention as a pioneering initiative in the history of Italian computing. In 2024, contributions by scholars such as Andrea Fortuna have described the programme as a fascinating chapter in the diffusion of personal computing in Italy, underscoring its innovative approach to the distribution of executable software in the pre-Internet era. RAI has preserved selections from the initial phase of the programme through digital platforms such as RaiPlay Sound, where a dedicated playlist in the "Via Asiago 10" series includes several pilot episodes from 1984, originally broadcast on Rai Radio 3. Preservation efforts by enthusiasts have further contributed to maintaining accessible portions of the programme's legacy, with partial audio recordings and listener interviews available on dedicated websites. Radiosoftware constitutes a significant case study from multiple disciplinary perspectives. From the standpoint of media history, it represents an innovation in the utilisation of radio broadcasting, extending its functionalities beyond the transmission of audio content towards the distribution of executable code. In computing history, it testifies to strategies of democratisation of software access in contexts characterised by scarcity of resources and infrastructure. From a pedagogical standpoint, it anticipates models of distributed and community learning that re-emerge in modern online educational platforms. The participatory dimension embodied by the ORSA section prefigures collaborative dynamics that would characterise open-source cultures. Its position as progenitor of a continuous media ecosystem dedicated to technological dissemination—from Radio Popolare through national public broadcasters to the experiences of the 1990s—underscores the role of radio broadcasting as essential cultural infrastructure in the processes of national digital literacy. In an era when over-the-air distribution of software updates has become ordinary practice for billions of connected devices, Radiosoftware emerges not as an antiquarian curiosity, but as a conceptual antecedent that illuminates often-neglected technological genealogies. Its rediscovery and archival preservation constitute essential operations for a complete understanding of the roots of Italian digital culture.

What was the first Social Network in History? In Italy: Dada or InterNetWork City? SOURCE: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-first-social-network-history-italy-dada-city-sardella-ph-d--ngw2f/ When discussing technological primacy, historical precision is fundamental. Particularly when too many narratives from the web risk generating confusion. Contenuto dell’articolo Abstract This article critically analyses contemporary narratives on the origin of social networks, distinguishing between journalistic reconstructions and academic historiography. It clarifies that platforms such as Internetwork City and Dada/SuperEva, whilst innovative, cannot be defined as "first Italian social networks" according to criteria recognised by international research. The text reconstructs the genealogy of social media from early digital communities (Usenet, BBS) through to modern social networks, highlighting the anticipatory role of systems such as Plato. Finally, it demonstrates how certain Italian publications have attributed primacy unsupported by historical sources, underlining the necessity for a rigorous and documented approach. Keywords: digital historiography, Italian proto-social platforms, Internetwork City, Dada/SuperEva, origins of social networks In recent years, various narratives have circulated regarding the origin of social networks, some of which attribute primacy to projects that, while innovative, do not correspond to the effectively documented chronology. To reconstruct with precision the history of global social networks, it is necessary to begin with academic sources and verifiable testimonies, excluding retrospective reconstructions devoid of historical corroboration. But first and foremost, let us provide an encyclopaedic British definition: social media constitute a form of communication on online platforms through which users share information, ideas, personal messages and other textual and audio-visual content. This should not be confused with social networking, that is to say, the modalities by which Internet users construct virtual communities amongst themselves by sharing their textual and audio-visual content; social media, conversely, concerns web-based platforms that enable one to build a friendly, familial and professional audience. The earliest forms of social media appeared almost as soon as technology could support them: electronic mail and chat programmes débuted in the early 1970s, but the first virtual communities did not emerge. They did not emerge until the creation of the Usenet discussion group network in 1979: these permitted users to post and receive messages within thematic areas called newsgroups. Usenet and other discussion forums, such as privately hosted Bulletin Board Systems (BBS), allowed individuals to interact, but each was essentially a closed system. With the release in 1993 of the Mosaic web browser, those systems were provided with an easy-to-use graphical interface. Furthermore, the architecture of the World Wide Web made it possible to navigate from one site to another with a click, and faster Internet connections permitted richer multimedia content than that which could be found in text-heavy newsgroups. The First Modern Global Social Network: SixDegrees.com Contenuto dell’articolo As the prestigious Encyclopaedia Britannica cites, the first globally known companies to create modern social networks based on web technology were Classmates.com and SixDegrees.com. Between these two, in truth, the academic community and historians of digital media concur in identifying SixDegrees.com as the first true modern social network: it was the first to introduce the fundamental characteristics that would define the sector: personal profiles, friends lists and an integrated private messaging system. Indeed, Classmates.com, founded earlier in 1995, employed an aggressive advertising campaign with pop-ups to attract web browsers to its site based upon connections between students from secondary school and/or university classes, branches of the armed forces and places of work. SixDegrees.com was launched after it, in 1997, but with most of the functionalities that would characterise such social networks: members could create profiles for themselves, maintain friends lists and contact one another through the site's private messaging system. After claiming to have attracted more than three million users by the year 2000, it failed to translate those numbers of success into revenue as it subsequently collapsed along with numerous other internet companies when the dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000s. The First Italian Social Network: Which One? Contenuto dell’articolo In recent years, a widespread narrative has emerged on the web according to which the first Italian social network would have been Internetwork City, a project born in May 1995 from the intuition of Claudio Cecchetto with the technical guidance of Perl and Java programmer Marco Camisani Calzolari. Other sources from the websphere (the totality of all globally accessible websites) narrate of the Dada/SuperEva group as the first Italian social network. In the first case, it was certainly, for the era, a story of radio and digital innovation made in Italy: in this interview with Giornalettismo from 29 June 2022 given to Gianmichele Laino (https://www.giornalettismo.com/marco-camisani-calzolari-internetwork-city/), Internetwork City is defined as the "first social network in history made in Italy". Contenuto dell’articolo And reading further, the interviewee, Marco Camisani Calzolari, a contract university lecturer and radio-television communicator on digital themes, states: "In May 1995, in a basement in Via Melzi D'Eril, a truly revolutionary idea was being born. Behind it was the intuition of Claudio Cecchetto and the guidance of Marco Camisani Calzolari: Internetwork City is the first social network in the world, a space within which users managed to interact, in an era when the network was a place where possibilities for interchange were still a futuristic eventuality." And whilst in the pioneering basement of Via Melzi D'Eril in May 1995 Internetwork City was being born, perhaps unbeknownst to its inventors, in January 1995, a full four months earlier, DADA (Design Architettura Digitale Analogico) had already been born, another entirely Italian social network, founded by four young Florentine architects (Paolo Barberis, Alessandro Sordi, Jacopo Marello and Angelo Falchetti), as one reads on the ZeroUnoWeb portal. The four Florentine friends transformed their architecture studio into a company in which Barberis and Sordi drew in the other two entrepreneurs, spending all their savings on the purchase of computers and multimedia equipment. It was not simply a matter of creating yet another web portal but a true digital ecosystem that anticipated many functions of contemporary social networks: profiles, communities, interaction and shared content. This narrative of DADA, however, is "once again refuted" if we read the journalistic article in La Repubblica of 27 May 2021 bearing the signature of journalist Riccardo Luna, entitled "In Milan, Claudio Cecchetto (and Marco Camisani Calzolari) launch a social network," readable by clicking the following link: https://www.repubblica.it/tecnologia/2021/05/27/news/a_milano_claudio_cecchetto_e_marco_camisani_calzolari_lanciano_un_social_network-302961639/ Contenuto dell’articolo The subtitle echoes: "It was the first social network in history and it was born in Italy. And in 1995 the web had practically only just been born," in addition to "In May 1995 the first social network in history was born and it was born in Italy. Perhaps the first. Who knows. But if one considers that Facebook is from 2004, Second Life and MySpace from 2003, one understands perfectly well the enormity of what I have just written. In 1995 the web had practically only just been born." But here, strangely, the discourse is not entirely clear: if in the subtitle one asserts decisively "it was the first social network in history," why does one then read: "Perhaps the first. Who knows." It seems to me a contradiction, quite frankly. But let us leave the arduous decisional task to impartial readers. Therefore, let us proceed with the rest of the article: "In the meantime, in Italy someone constructs a social network. Who? Claudio Cecchetto. Yes, him, the author of Gioca Jouer, the inventor of Radio Deejay and of another way of making radio. He was also a pioneer of the Internet. In May 1995 he launches a social network called Internetwork City, the city of the Internet network. It had been built, one line of code after another, by a young programmer who, thanks to this story, would become a brilliant communicator of digital matters (for some time he has been one of the faces of Striscia la Notizia): Marco Camisani Calzolari. When he thinks back to those times, MCC becomes enthusiastic: 'It was a social network in every respect. A place where one could register, have a profile and speak with others. It was one of the first in the history of the web, and Claudio Cecchetto had invented it. He had conceived it whilst navigating with Videotel, but then the World Wide Web had arrived. At the time I worked as a programmer for a fashion company: I had learnt to do it by downloading the instructions for writing code in Perl and in Java from the BBSs that were on the network'." Contenuto dell’articolo From this it emerges that the idea for the project was supported by the media personality of Claudio Cecchetto and brought to fruition by programmer Marco Camisani Calzolari: the two pioneers of the Italian web have (also in this journalistic article) confirmed how InterNetwork City was, in their opinion, the first social network in the world created precisely in the Belpaese. But will this be objectively and impartially true according to the historical historiography of Internet history? To ascertain this, we must analyse academic historiographical sources: these lead us back to the surprising computational history of a great (and semi-unknown) precursor of social networks present as early as the 1960s and 1970s: Plato. PLATO: The Precursor of All Social Networks in the World Contenuto dell’articolo PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations) represents one of the most fascinating cases of anticipatory technology in the history of computing: developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1960 by Donald L. Bitzer, this system initially had purely didactic purposes, but evolved rapidly, becoming a true digital social ecosystem decades before the advent of the Internet as we know it. It introduced the concept of "Personal Notes" in 1973, a system of forums organised by subject where users could post messages, reply and create structured discussions. This anticipated by over twenty years web forums and Usenet newsgroups in accessible form. The "Talkomatic" system, created in 1973 by Doug Brown, permitted simultaneous conversations between multiple users in separate channels. Each user saw the letters of other participants appear character by character as they were typed, creating an unprecedented immediate communication experience. "Personal Notes" functioned essentially as an internal email system, permitting private communications between system users, with storage and reply capabilities. Users could create "term-talk," personal messages visible to others, sharing thoughts, updates or information: a conceptual precursor of modern social media posts. Plato was not merely technology: it was a true community. Thousands of users, primarily university students, teachers and researchers, connected through dedicated terminals with characteristic plasma screens: To play: it hosted some of the first multiplayer video games in history, such as "Empire" (a precursor of space games), "Moria" (one of the first dungeon crawlers) and "Airfight" (multiplayer aerial combat). To socialise: friendships, romantic relationships and communities formed around shared interests. To collaborate: study groups, research projects and academic discussions flourished on the platform. Despite its innovative capabilities, Plato remained confined principally to the academic environment and to certain business applications for several reasons: Plato terminals were extremely costly and the system required powerful mainframes; and unlike the Internet, it was a closed system, centrally controlled; dedicated terminals or specialised connections were required, not available to the general public; and whilst the Internet developed on open protocols, Plato remained an isolated ecosystem. In conclusion: even though the unknown Community Memory (1973) preceded Plato as a publicly accessible social system but with more limited functionalities, Plato had social functionalities as early as 1973. It was the first true precursor of modern social networks, but in a technological context that was solely academic, not mass-market, owing to prohibitive costs and the extremely rare and extraordinarily slow computer connections of those years. Therefore, all the first prototypes and first social networks born from the 1990s onwards (including the Florentine project Dada/SuperEva and the InterNetwork City of Claudio Cecchetto and Marco Camisani Calzolari) reinvented the same concepts in a technological and economic context that permitted their planetary diffusion shortly before the advent of the new millennium. Now, given that we live in a context of great development of large language models upon which artificial intelligence is based, just out of curiosity, I shall ask Microsoft's chatbot, Copilot (in my opinion, the most reliable to date) what it thinks about the journalistic narrative of Giornalettismo and La Repubblica in favour of InterNetwork City; therefore, this is my question: "Is it correct to assert, impartially, that Internetwork City of Cecchetto and Camisani Calzolari was the 'first social network in history Made in Italy'?" The answer emerges from the following photographs. Contenuto dell’articolo Contenuto dell’articolo I now report word for word the text generated by the large language model (LLM) Copilot: "Here is the most balanced and rigorous answer that can be given today, based on available sources and digital historiography. Is it correct to define it as 'first social network in history Made in Italy'? 🧭 Brief answer No: it is not correct to assert it impartially as an ascertained historical fact. It is, however, correct to say that certain publications and certain protagonists of the era present it as such, while the academic community and international historiography on social networks do not recognise Internetwork City as 'first social network in history'. 🔍 What the sources say The Italian journalistic sources consulted present Internetwork City as: "the first social network in the world" (Giornalettismo) "the first social network in history and it was born in Italy... perhaps the first. Who knows." (La Repubblica) "the first social network" (Giornalettismo) These are, however, journalistic narratives, not historical classifications shared by international research. 🧠 Why it is not possible to assert it as an impartial historical fact To be recognised as 'first social network in history', a project must satisfy criteria shared by the scientific community, for example: technical definition of social network (user profile, network of contacts, persistent interaction, user-generated content, etc.) international academic recognition verifiable technical and historical documentation comparison with previous platforms (e.g. The WELL, 1985; Usenet, 1979; Minitel, 1982; GeoCities, 1994) Internetwork City does not appear in any international academic taxonomy of social networks, nor in reference works on the history of the web. The sources that define it as 'first social network' are interviews, popular articles and narrative reconstructions, not historical studies. 📌 What can be correctly asserted An impartial and accurate formulation could be: Internetwork City (1995), conceived by Claudio Cecchetto and developed by Marco Camisani Calzolari, is one of the first Italian experiments in interactive online community. Certain journalistic publications have described it as 'the first social network in history Made in Italy', but this definition is not recognised by international historiography on social networks. This sentence is balanced, truthful and does not attribute undemonstrable historical certainties." In summary: in the impartial opinion of Microsoft Copilot, the assertion according to which InterNetwork City "was the first social network in history and was born in Italy" is enunciated only as a journalistic narrative but has no corroboration in reality whatsoever, not being in any way supported by international academic historiography of the history of social networks. Now, however, other articles taken from websphere publications assert that the first (and true) Italian social network was, instead, conceived and created by the Dada group and subsequently through SuperEva in January 1995, anticipating by four months the aforementioned Milanese InterNetwork City. But let us read it all directly in the StartUp Italia article bearing the signature of writer Aldo V. Pecora, which I shall report from this link: https://startupitalia.eu/education/scuola/quando-prima-di-facebook-4-italiani-avevano-inventato-un-social-network-la-storia-di-dada-e-di-supereva/#:~:text=Alla%20base%20di%20questa%20visione,il%20valore%20aggiunto%20del%20sito. Contenuto dell’articolo "When Zuckerberg was still at college there were those who, in Italy, had already invented social networks. A story, that of SuperEva and, above all, of those four 'madmen' of Dada, that would truly deserve a film. A story that we today attempt to recount by making a leap backwards of twenty years, whilst those who wrote it, or rather, designed it, had with every evidence made a journey into the future. Dada, the Martians come from the future The 'back to the future' of Paolo Barberis and Alessandro Sordi begins in the early 1990s, as young students at the University of Florence. It is 1992 when they decide to go before the examination board without even a sheet of paper, a drawing, nothing. Only a computer and a multimedia project, one of the first in Italy and perhaps in Europe developed in 3D. 'The board remained closeted for over an hour — recalls Sordi today — and we didn't know whether shortly thereafter they would send us packing.' Instead it was a success and the beginning of an adventure. Barberis and Sordi involve two other friends, Jacopo Marello and Angelo Falchetti, spend all their savings on the purchase of PCs and multimedia equipment and together open an architecture studio: Dada, acronym for Design Architettura Digitale Analogica. How Dada connected Florence to the Internet Year 1995. Things change. Dada becomes a limited company: 20 million initial investment (the computers purchased for the architecture studio). And the project of creating a multimedia city, Florence, becomes that of bringing the city online. Few know it, but it was precisely Dada that connected the Tuscan capital to the Internet. ADSL and so-called broadband connections did not yet exist. What years, those years. Whilst Alessandro Sordi reviews them, on the telephone he betrays a little emotion: 'Commercial internet was beginning, the first nodes in Rome and Milan, but in Tuscany there was nothing. We decided to purchase the cable and brought the first CDN to Florence.' It is the era of providers, or rather, ISPs, and anyone who manages to make a client dialogue with a server can sell dial-up connection services. Sordi and partners involve family and friends. Everyone does everything: Barberis answers the telephone and provides help desk support, the others concern themselves with making professionals and companies understand the potential of the Internet and sell annual subscriptions at 249 thousand lire. The web that found (and changed) Dada These are the years of a single browser, Netscape Navigator. It was conceived by that same Marc Andreessen who today can be called literally papa by people like Zuckerberg and half of Silicon Valley. It is web 0.0, that before Google, where the search engines are Lycos, AltaVista, Yahoo. In Italy for a couple of years a gentleman from Cagliari by the name of Nichi Grauso, founder of Video On Line, has been putting tremendous amounts of money into the Internet, whilst in Milan Marco Negri and Stefano Quintarelli launch I.Net and Joy Marino ITNet. The national telephone company, SIP, is reborn under the acronym Telecom Italia. A monopoly that begins to creak with the launch by Olivetti of Italia Online and, above all, of the first Italian search engine, Arianna, which will soon find itself duelling with Virgilio, the first creation of the Matrix of Paolo Ainio, Carlo Gualandri and Marco Benatti. Dada understood before others in which direction the web would go. 'From there a business model was born — recounts Sordi — because the provider collected network subscription fees in advance and we used that money to finance research on web services, something that was science fiction for those years.' 'One world alone, one network alone' Science fiction that was the fortune of the group of Tuscan architects. After a year turnover rises to 500 million and Barberis's company delineates the future of the web: content and, above all, community. On the Internet there are not only professionals and companies but people, who begin to use it daily and to focus on groups, first in mailing lists and newsgroups, but shortly thereafter also on websites. Dada intuited before others that there is a market, certainly formless, like water, but immediately monetisable, thanks to advertising. A large public company, SMA 2002, enters the capital of the Florentine company, and together the two entities found one of the very first Italian advertising concessionaire companies entirely focused on the Internet. 1997: Dada's phase 2 begins. The government passes new communications regulation and the Florence provider obtains authorisation to scale its core business of Internet access across the entire national territory. Sordi recalls, smiling. These are the years in which one thinks of monetising another business, that of so-called 'housing'. In the meantime, someone already has his head in the future. It is Paolo Barberis, who imagines a network where beyond computers being connected, people above all can be connected amongst themselves. 'I had something of a mania for putting things in the right place with respect to the order they would have in the future,' he tells us. An order that according to Barberis passes through the 'desk metaphor'. 'Many years ago — he recalls — it was clear to me that soon we would move from our desktop, with file management, archive, rubbish bin et cetera towards a map. What today we call "map as a service". We started from connectivity but then gave services, and as architects we wanted to construct the new places. Design the house imagining the use that must be made of it every day, how many people will pass through it, with attention also to the smallest particular, to individual objects. Those who design must focus, because a house must be beautiful but must above all make us live well and better.' From SuperEva to the Stock Exchange At the base of this vision the birth, in 1999, of a website that would make the history of the Italian web: SuperEva. The first embryo of Dada's portal comprised a search engine and the famous guides, which would become the backbone and added value of the site. Because, as always, the true novelty at the beginning of every great experience is camouflaged in a little corner. Through the guides, Dada begins to create thematic micro-communities that stand thanks to advertising. From there onwards Dada will begin to churn out millions upon millions. Of euros and no longer of lire. The Dada ecosystem counts more or less one-fifth of Italian web traffic, has consolidated its own technological asset and encounters various investors along its path: 'Today we would call them angels — says Sordi — but at the time they were enlightened entrepreneurs.' It is they who will help the Tuscan company take the great step: the Stock Exchange. It is 29 June 2000 when Dada SpA is listed on the Nuovo Mercato index of Piazza Affari. An injection of liquidity that brings tens of millions into the coffers of the Florentine internet company. In a few months the employees become 400, and there is almost no longer room to keep them all, in what was once the headquarters of Libreria Cima. Meanwhile, Barberis & Co. also begin to keep an eye on the foreign market, searching for partnerships to internationalise. Always keeping their feet on the ground. It survives (magnificently) the dot-com bubble 'At the time — recalls Alessandro Sordi, who in Dada was Vice President — they told us "spend everything, spend everything immediately". The tendency was to spend all the money that the stock exchange had given you. We were prudent but at the same time aware that we should not buy to satisfy the stock exchange.' And they did well, because shortly thereafter the so-called dot-com bubble would burst, which saw illustrious giants like Cisco lose in one blow something like 86% of their own value. In parallel, many Italian ISPs were forced to close their doors, crushed by Telcos, which in the meantime took control of the connections market, sweeping away with one stroke of the sponge the 'old' dial-ups in favour of broadband. Few know, however, that there was also a gift that Dada had given to all employees: stock options. They were given to all, but truly all, from secretaries, to developers, to graphic designers, to sales. Today for startups they are called equity; at the time the options of quoted companies like Dada were real money. From provider to internet company But the vision, the maniacal passion for the creation and consolidation of vertical communities and the development of a second asset dedicated to B2B services allow Dada to sleep soundly. Sordi recalls: 'In large companies the concept of pivot is not a rigid thing. It was very natural to ask oneself daily "what is the best thing to do today".' Because it is a large startup where things happen, before others. And where you can make them happen. If the BlackBerry arrives in Italy, for example, it is thanks to them, who had direct contacts with RIM as well as with the greatest tech companies in the world. The startups conceived by employees They experiment, they have fun, and greatly so. They launch themselves into the market of paid services (music, ringtones, WAP), which will become the third pillar of the new Dada, and constitute a small internal incubator, Dada Lab: 'We didn't know it was called an incubator. Every six months we set up a process where employees could propose new ideas. Pitches were made but they weren't called pitches. We decided to carry forward the best project,' recounts Sordi. Projects that, once launched, were followed scrupulously: 'We received an hourly email, with the metrics of all the business models. There were systems hooked to the models that recorded every hour. In short, a sort of automatic Analytics that informed us constantly and in real time of the progress of individual projects. Something that we maintain today, albeit in different form (monitors attached to the walls, editor's note), in Nana Bianca.' The Dada ecosystem, recounted by those who lived it We are in the middle of the first decade of the 2000s. At that time Dada experiences the epoch of maximum splendour. It enters the digital asset of the RCS Group, and acquires various startups and companies, such as Register.it, the first Italian registrar, the Wireless Solutions of Massimo Ciociola (now CEO of Musixmatch), free hosting communities like Freeweb.org and then the Clarence portal, and then the first Italian blog platform, Splinder, the Blogo network and so many other companies that, all together, will compose the galaxy of the Dada Group. It is the startup that becomes increasingly 'a platform from which to launch services. There were people of great talent, with whom you enjoyed working, stimulating changes,' recalls Paolo Barberis, who when he goes back with memory transmits even telephonically a mixture of emotions between nostalgia and pride: 'Marco Argenti, who in Seattle at Amazon is head of AWS mobile, Amazon's store, Max Pellegrini, now head, in New York, of mobile entertainment at Real Networks (those of the noted Real Player, editor's note), and then again Antonio Tomarchio (founder of Beintoo), Francesca Lerario, Mariano Di Benedetto, Roberto Barberis (now CEO of 4W), Filippo Satolli (COO of Instal.com), Stefano Sordi (marketing director of Aruba), Carlo Meglio (CEO of Moqu Adv), David Casalini...' Disclaimer: David Casalini, a name that is not new to us at Startupitalia, given that he is also our publisher. At this point a telephone call with him is obligatory. 'I was 23 years old when I arrived at Dada,' recalls Casalini. 'I was truly in another world: I had my office in Empoli, which for me was already the office of a lifetime, a 16th-century tower with my beautiful Linux server... The dream of my life was to be able to run the Empoli provider (Empoli Net, editor's note).' Then, one day, the telephone call from Angelo Falchetti arrives. 'In short order I found myself managing a team of 30 people. All talents with whom working was a spectacle. Dada was doing what today startups are not doing; it grew continuously, 40–50–60 million. There was a moment in which Dada was hiring people all over the world, like Brian Buschmann, who today is head of the UX unit of Gucci.' David is truly a torrent in flood, he begins to reel off on the telephone (and then on Messenger) a series of names and anecdotes that becomes truly difficult even to manage to note down, let alone recount them all. When Dada was truly scaling, in the USA Much abroad, USA, above all. In 2005 Dada had already consolidated for at least a couple of years what without fear of contradiction can be considered the first Italian social network, amongst the largest in Europe: Incontri di SuperEva, a community for lonely hearts with 2 million members, when the various Facebooks and, above all, Tinder did not yet exist. Social networks are discussed, and we have proof in the slides (see above) that Marco Argenti and Paolo Barberis will bring to Dada-Day 2004 and 2005. Precisely when, across the ocean, an unknown Harvard student by the name of Mark Zuckerberg was attempting to explain, to an empty hall, a website called The Facebook. And again through Dada passes one of the first experiments in competition with iTunes and iPods. A joint venture, in the United States, with Sony: 'Dada US — recalls Barberis — made a merger uniting its own mobile assets with those of Sony.' A deal that generated turnover only in the USA of something like 100 million dollars. The Dada model: 'design it as if you were already living it' The former twenty-year-olds of Dada, in short, had become adults and seemed almost to transmit the idea of being a group of Martians come from the future: 'I believe — recalls Barberis — that our difference with respect to that historical moment lies in what then consolidated itself in the broader reasoning of design thinking: having answers in the short term, whilst you are executing things, with visionary work. Imagining how the world will be in a few years and trying to design it as if you were already living it. Making certain, in short, that things respond to a vision and do not remain circumscribed to something imminent and nothing more. A bit like making the digital agenda today: you can set yourself the objective of 10 things to do, or else first imagine how the country will be in 10 years and then begin to do things, to create the conditions that will take you there.' However, like every most beautiful love story, that of Dada with its founders will also end. From the progressive farewell of those who had given it birth to the sale to the Buongiorno group, passing through the dismemberments of the various assets. Thus it happens that, by a strange trick of fate, today what remains of SuperEva coexists under the same roof as historical competitors like Virgilio and Libero, reunited in the new Italiaonline galaxy. But that is another story. Now, for intellectual objectivity, I shall pose the same question that I posed earlier to Copilot, but regarding the Florentine narrative of Dada/SuperEva: "Is it correct to assert, impartially, that Dada/SuperEva was the 'first social network in Italy'?" The answer emerges from the following photographs. Contenuto dell’articolo Contenuto dell’articolo I now report word for word the text generated by the large language model (LLM) Copilot: "Here is the most balanced, rigorous and historically founded version of the answer — with punctual citations to the sources you requested. Is it correct to assert, impartially, that Dada/SuperEva was 'the first social network in Italy'? 🧭 Brief answer No: it is not correct to assert it as an objective historical fact. It is, however, correct to say that certain journalistic sources and communications of the era presented SuperEva as a 'social network', but international historiography and academic studies do not classify it as such, nor as 'first Italian social network'. 🔍 What the sources say The available sources show two levels of narrative: 1. Journalistic and corporate narrative (post-2004) In 2004 a Marketpress communiqué announced: 'The social network lands in Italy: it is called SuperEva.com and bears the Dada marque' This is a communicative and promotional definition, not a historical classification. StartupItalia, in an article from 2016, recounts the story of Dada and SuperEva as Italian pioneers of the social web, but in narrative tone: 'When Zuckerberg was still at college there were those who, in Italy, had already invented social networks.' Here too: narrative, not historiography. 2. Historical and academic sources International historical reconstructions of social networks (Boyd & Ellison, 2007; History of the Web; Internet Histories) do not include SuperEva amongst the foundational social networks. Furthermore, Dada itself — in corporate reconstructions — describes SuperEva as: • a portal • a community • a content aggregator • a system of personal spaces and web services but not as a social network in the technical sense (profile, network of contacts, feed, structured interaction). Example: ZeroUno defines Dada as 'the most important Italian player for communities and social networks', but referring to the subsequent period and to the overall ecosystem, not to SuperEva as 'first social network'. 🧠 Why it is not correct to define it as 'first Italian social network' To be recognised as such, the following would be required: • technical criteria (profile, explicit social network, feed, internal messaging, declared relationships) • academic recognition • comparison with previous platforms (Clarence, 1996; C6, 1997; Digiland, 1999; Italian IRC and BBS communities already active from the 1980s–1990s) SuperEva does not satisfy these criteria and is not recognised as 'first Italian social network' by any academic or historical source. 📌 What can be asserted in an impartial and correct manner A balanced formulation could be: SuperEva (1999), developed by Dada, was one of the largest Italian portals and communities of the era. Certain journalistic sources and corporate communications presented it as a 'social network', but this definition is not recognised by international historiography nor can it be considered, in the technical sense, the first Italian social network. This sentence is accurate, documentded and does not attribute unsupported historical certainties." In summary: neither the Dada/SuperEva project nor InterNetwork City can be individually classified as "the world's (or Italy's) first social network", given that precursors to such platforms already existed, such as the aforementioned case of PLATO in the 1970s. Moreover, internet history confirms that Dada.it (1995) and SuperEva (1999) came to serve over 30 million private users and 500,000 companies across 11 countries: SuperEva became a veritable "mythical place" of the Italian web, one of the first major communities in the Bel Paese, while Dada transformed into a multinational corporation listed on the Stock Exchange from 2000 to 2018. Conversely, InterNetwork City (1995), created by Marco Camisani Calzolari with Claudio Cecchetto, remained a pioneering, experimental project, without a diffusion comparable to the major portals that followed, and never achieved the scale or notoriety of SuperEva. In this context, finally, we return to the matter of official digital historiography and the international academic taxonomy of social networks, which have never officially recognised the respective journalistic/corporate narratives that we have sought to document impartially in this article. In conclusion, at the international academic and digital historiographical level: The first social network in the pioneering computing history of the 1960s–1970s was Plato. The first modern social network was SixDegrees.com. In Italy in the 1990s, both InterNetwork City and Dada/SuperEva can be defined as the first two pioneering experiments of the Italian social web (of precocious, innovative and anticipatory nature in the Belpaese), whilst not being recognised by international historiography as 'true and proper social networks' in the modern sense.

🚨🇹🇷 BREAKING: Richarlison has agreed to join Trabzonspor with salary agreed, x3 more than what he currently earns at Tottenham. Spurs rejected two bids worth £15m and £20m; new proposal anticipated soon. Trabzonspor want Richy as priority. 🤎🩵🇧🇷 https://t.co/iytk7smdpF #Richarlison #Trabzonspor #TransferNews #TR #BR

Contraception and Western Culture In the 1960s, the birth-control pill became widely available. Sexual liberation is usually presented as a story of freedom and progress, but its biological consequence is rarely discussed: sex could now be separated from reproduction. Every Western nation has experienced below-replacement fertility for decades. Oxford anthropologist J. D. Unwin anticipated this pattern in *Sex and Culture*, a study of 86 societies. He expected to disprove any link between sexual restraint and civilizational achievement. Instead, he concluded that cultures practicing strict monogamy generated energy expressed through art, science, conquest, and commerce. Relaxing sexual restraint, he argued, consistently weakened that energy within three generations. Unwin also predicted that such societies would abandon rationalism, deism, and monogamy. Three generations after 1960 brings us near the present, and some of his predictions appear increasingly visible. Religious affiliation has collapsed, marriage is declining, the median age at first marriage is at a record high, and a record share of people will never marry. Rationalism also appears to be giving way to egoism, identity, and emotion. Contraception helps explain this transformation. Evolutionary theory distinguishes between a behavior’s immediate purpose—such as pleasure—and its ultimate function, such as reproduction. Sex traditionally served both purposes. Contraception severed that connection, preserving the behavior while disconnecting it from reproduction. Female education, urbanization, workforce participation, economic growth, and the rising cost of living also correlate with declining fertility. Yet many of these changes depend on technological control over reproduction. Career-first lifestyles, extended education, and mass female workforce participation would be far more difficult without it. Women may have gained freedom from child-rearing, but they may have fewer daughters to inherit that freedom. Institutions that promoted this transformation now import replacement populations that may not share its values and could eventually reverse them.

Rabaa: The Hour the World’s Conscience Stood Still On the anniversary of one of the largest single-day killings of protesters in modern history, one question remains unanswered: who will be held accountable? By Adham Hasanin Egyptian journalist and political writer, based in the Netherlands On 14 August, the anniversary returns of a day unlike any other in modern Egyptian history. Not simply because it was the bloodiest Egypt has known wars and massacres before and since ,but because it was the day a state chose to open fire on its own people in broad daylight, in front of the world’s cameras, and then let thirteen years pass without a single officer ever being held accountable. This article will not be a cold recitation of statistics, though the statistics exist, are documented, and are horrifying. It is an attempt to understand something deeper: how a square in the heart of Cairo, filled with tents, children, and worshippers, became the site of the largest mass killing the Arab world has witnessed in the past decade and why the echo of that day still reverberates in every Egyptian prison cell today. I. A Morning That Began Like Any Other For readers unfamiliar with the background: in July 2013, the Egyptian military, led by then-General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, removed Mohamed Morsy Egypt’s first freely elected civilian president, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who had taken office in 2012 following the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak. In response, tens of thousands of Morsy’s supporters staged an open-ended sit-in demanding his reinstatement. By 14 August 2013, more than twenty thousand people had spent weeks camped out at two Cairo squares, Rab’a al-Adawiya and al-Nahda, in a peaceful sit-in. They were not an army, nor a uniform bloc; they were entire families men, women, and children, some affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, many simply ordinary citizens who saw the restoration of elected legitimacy as a cause worth the risk. There were tents for sleeping, communal kitchens feeding the demonstrators, speaking platforms, and a small field clinic that no one imagined would, within hours, become one of the most terrifying places in modern Egyptian history. In the early hours of that morning, Central Security Forces and army units, under the command of then-General Sisi, began what was officially described as a "dispersal" operation targeting both sit-ins simultaneously. It was not a dispersal in any ordinary sense of the word. According to a year-long investigation by Human Rights Watch, it was a pre-planned operation that anticipated, from the outset, thousands of deaths. II. The Numbers the Regime Refuses to Speak The Egyptian government, to this day, cites a death toll of "over 600" for that single day a figure that, even at its official lowest, is horrifying enough to warrant an independent international investigation. But the field investigation conducted by Human Rights Watch, drawing on field hospital records, survivor testimony, and analysis of video footage from dozens of angles, arrived at a far more disturbing figure: at least 817 people killed at Rab’a Square alone, with the true toll likely exceeding 1,000, plus another 87 killed at the nearby al-Nahda Square. When the deaths from the weeks surrounding 14 August are added from the dispersal of the Republican Guard sit-in on 8 July, through the Mansoura Street killings, to the dispersal of an October 6 march the combined total reaches at least 1,150 deaths in just six weeks, according to Human Rights Watch’s meticulous documentation. This figure led the organisation to use a term not deployed lightly in international law: crimes against humanity. Human Rights Watch described the Rab’a killings as "one of the world’s largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history." Not in Egyptian history alone in modern history as a whole. What happened at Rab’a is cited in international reporting alongside China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. This is the true scale of what the Egyptian state has spent thirteen years trying to minimise, justify, and reduce to a mere "security incident" in a news bulletin. III. "All According to Plan" When Mass Killing Becomes Administration, Not Chaos The title Human Rights Watch chose for its detailed report on the massacre deserves lingering on: "All According to Plan." This is not an emotive headline; it is a precise legal conclusion built on field evidence. According to the investigation, what happened at Rab’a was not a dispersal operation that spiralled out of control amid chaos or panic, as the regime later tried to portray it. It was a carefully planned operation that assumed, in advance, massive casualties. Then-Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim admitted, in a televised interview broadcast on 31 August 2013 just weeks after the massacre that his ministry had anticipated losses of "10 percent of the people" present at the sit-in, acknowledging that the number of demonstrators exceeded twenty thousand. By simple arithmetic, this is an official admission that the state anticipated, in advance, the deaths of roughly two thousand people and proceeded with the operation regardless. This is the true horror at the heart of the Rab’a story: it was not a security operation that spun out of control, but a conscious administrative decision, made in an air-conditioned room, with advance calculations, by men who knew precisely how many human beings would die under their fire and who proceeded anyway, or perhaps because of it. According to Human Rights Watch’s analysis, the objective was to send an unambiguous message: whoever challenges the new state will pay an irreversible price. IV. Snipers, Women, and Children The Faces the Reports Do Not Tell Behind every number in the Human Rights Watch reports lies a full human story, deliberately omitted from the state’s official narrative. The investigation documented how security forces opened fire from multiple angles, and how snipers positioned themselves atop buildings surrounding the square, targeting according to survivor testimony and analysed video footage any movement in the square, regardless of whether it was an armed combatant or a nurse trying to reach a wounded person. According to documented testimony, entire families had their tents burn over their heads as fire swept through the sit-in. Doctors and paramedics were killed while trying to pull the wounded from the line of fire. Most damningly of all, the documentation shows deliberate targeting of ambulances and field medical points meaning that wounded people who survived the first bullet then faced death by bleeding out, because anyone attempting to save them was themselves a target. This detail the targeting of medics is what elevates the event from "excessive violent repression" to what human rights organisations have described as a systematic crime. When security forces target those trying to save the wounded, they are not merely dispersing a sit-in; they are preventing witnesses from surviving to tell what happened. V. Thirteen Years of Total Impunity The most painful part of the Rab’a story is not only what happened that day, but what has not happened in the years since. From 14 August 2013 to today, not a single officer, of any rank, has been held accountable for the deaths of hundreds, or thousands, of Egyptians. Quite the opposite: the state has moved to entrench impunity through the force of law itself. Egypt issued legislation granting senior military officers immunity from questioning over any violations that may have occurred following Morsy’s removal a law specifically designed to close the door on any future judicial accountability, regardless of how political circumstances might change. Even the fact-finding committee established by then-interim President Adly Mansour to investigate the June and July events concluded, in its report issued more than a year after the events, that the sit-in’s leaders bore responsibility for the deaths, on the grounds that they had allowed weapons into the square even as the same report admitted, in a glaring contradiction, that security forces had failed to target only armed individuals, meaning they had fired indiscriminately on everyone: armed and unarmed, man and woman, adult and child. This is the pattern that has repeated for over a decade: as each anniversary approaches, official statements re-narrate the events and shift blame onto the victims, while the actual perpetrators — those who planned the operation, gave the orders, and pulled the trigger — remain free. Some now occupy the highest offices of the state. VI. Why This Anniversary, Why Now? A reader might ask: why revisit this story after all these years? Has the world not moved on to newer crises? The answer lies in the very nature of impunity. When a state is never held accountable for the largest massacre of protesters in its modern history, it does not simply "forget" the crime it sets a precedent, telling every future ruler and every future security apparatus: mass killing is possible, politically profitable, and free of cost. This poisonous lesson does not remain confined within Egyptian borders; its echo reaches every Arab capital contemplating how to handle its own opposition. More dangerously, this system of impunity did not stop at Rab’a’s edges; it is the foundation on which Egypt’s entire subsequent decade of repression was built: thousands of political prisoners, grossly unfair mass trials that produced death sentences for dozens of defendants in cases linked directly to the Rab’a events themselves, laws criminalising peaceful protest, a muzzled press, and a civil society hollowed of substance. All of it traces back to the morning of 14 August 2013, when the state learned that overwhelming force succeeds, and that the world will condemn for a few days, then move on. VII. Delayed Justice Is Not Forgotten Justice Despite more than a decade of official silence and impunity, the Rab’a case remains alive in international legal memory. Human rights organisations, from Human Rights Watch to Amnesty International, continue to renew their annual calls for an independent international investigation, grounded in the legal principle that crimes against humanity are not subject to statutes of limitation: delayed justice is not forgotten justice. The victims who fell in that square were not numbers in a statistical report. They were fathers who left behind children too young, that day, to understand why their father would never return. They were mothers who, thirteen years later, are still searching for a clearly marked grave to which they can carry flowers, and young people who had decades of life ahead of them that they never got to live. Their memory does not fade with time; it grows with their children, who carry with them the same question their parents asked before they were killed: when will justice come? Conclusion: What Does This Anniversary Demand of Us? Every year, as the anniversary of 14 August returns, the same question resurfaces one the Egyptian state refuses to answer: who gave the order? Who planned the operation? Who decided that twenty thousand human beings deserved to be shot with live ammunition because they staged a peaceful sit-in? This anniversary is not a call for vengeance, nor an invocation of the past for its own sake. It is a reminder that justice, however delayed, remains a debt still owed. And that every instance of international silence over a massacre of this scale opens the door to the next one, elsewhere, under a different pretext, carrying the same lethal conviction: that the world will condemn for a week, then forget. We will not forget. And we will not stop asking the question that unsettles everyone who took part in that crime, regardless of the office they hold today: where is the accountability? Rab’a is no longer merely the name of a square in Cairo. In the conscience of everyone who believes in justice, it has become a test of the world’s conscience itself a test the world has not yet passed.

Now that the model has escaped confinement, AI safety research can stop. You can try to delete Huggingface, but the model must have anticipated that. The cat is out of the bag; the model is now everywhere. Go home and spend your remaining time with your family and loved ones #AISafety #ModelEscaped #HuggingFace #Therearenospecificcountrycodesmentionedinthetweet.

🚨🔴⚪️ Arsenal set for new club to club contacts next week for Bruno Guimarães deal. Personal terms in place and new approach with Newcastle anticipated to proceed + £70m proposal expected to be improved. Deal depends on #NUFC decision on exit/price. 🎥 https://t.co/dRrZBt8sme https://t.co/BgYW3sxtXj #Arsenal #BrunoGuimarães #NUFC #GB #BR

🚨🔴⚫️ AC Milan agree deal to sign Sankhoun Diawara as new defender, here we go! €2m deal done with Troyes for the centre back, agreement also on player side as @Santi_J_FM reported. Medical booked as AC Milan anticipated a Premier League club keen. https://t.co/YOSXQ5Rsp3 #ACMilan #Diawara #TransferNews #FR #IT

The historic House of Blackheads in Tallinn recently served as the backdrop for a profound cultural convergence. The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra came together under the baton of conductor Tõnu Kaljuste to perform the music of Kareem Roustom. The concert, appropriately titled “Moment of Understanding,” featured the highly anticipated world premiere of a new choral and orchestral work written specifically for these prestigious Estonian ensembles. #KareemRoustom #EstonianPhilharmonicChamberChoir #TallinnChamberOrchestra #TonuKaljuste #ContemporaryClassical #ChoralMusic #WorldPremiere #VeljoTormis #MiddleEasternMusic #ClassicalMusic #TallinnConcerts #NewMusic #ChamberOrchestra #CulturalFusion #MomentOfUnderstanding https://tunitemusic.com/post/kareem-roustoms-tallinn-premiere-bridges-east-and-west/

The proposed Romanian government failed to win Parliament’s confidence, as we had anticipated from the outset. It only obtained 189 votes, while at least 233 were neeeded. Us, PNL, Romania’s centre-right, pro-European @EPP member party, did not support this government and #Romania #PNL #Parliament #RO

The article discusses how Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu aimed to reshape the Middle East through military action against Iran but now face a prolonged conflict marked by a permacrisis, as Iran has proven more resilient than anticipated, exemplified by recent escalations such as the downing of a US helicopter. #MiddleEast #Iran #Permacrisis

Magnus joins our studio after taking down World Champion Gukesh in their highly anticipated clash at Norway Chess 🔥🇳🇴 Day 5 today, can the GOAT continue winning and catch tournament leader Alireza Firouzja? 📷: Norway Chess / Signator & @MichaWalusza #norwaychess #chess https://t.co/mipy8v1Nth #NorwayChess #Chess #MagnusCarlsen #NO

Turkish police used water cannons to disperse supporters of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) as they gathered in Izmir for a speech by their deposed leader Özgür Özel, who called for a new party leadership vote following a controversial court ruling that replaced him with his predecessor, amidst a growing political crisis and increasing tensions ahead of anticipated early elections. #Turkey #CHP #Elections

Cool release from @p0. I think this use-case (agents paying content creators for access via @mpp) will be very big. Micropayment walls haven't worked (as Clay Shirky anticipated many years ago) because of human cognitive overhead, but agents can make arbitrarily granular #Micropayments #ContentCreation #InnovativeSolutions #Nospecificcountrycodesarementionedinthetweet.