App Catches Russian Protesters Before They Protest Well this isnt good news for civil disobedience in Russia. The country Center for Research in Legitimacy and Political Protest claims that it has developed a computer program that will sift through social media websites every five minutes looking for signs of organized political opposition. If it finds something suspicious, it alerts law enforcement officials and others via a mobile phone app. The Russian site, Izvestia (via Google translate) says that illegal activity and unauthorized actions, according to Russian law, includes: Meetings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets. The software dubbed Laplace Demon after Pierre-Simon Laplace theoretical all-seeing intellect that could calculate the future based on the state of all matter pays particular attention to social media groups known to organize such rallies and monitors the number of likes and reposts. In this way, it can anticipate when momentum is building and alert the authorities. Anyone caught participating in such unlawful activity as free speech will be fined up to about $600 (30,000 rubles) or sentenced to 50 hours of community service. According to the Center director, Yevgeny Venediktov, Twitter is the main focus for the software. He wrote, We conducted a survey and found out that it is precisely this social network is not only the leader among social media on the number of hosted links to extremist content, but also does not remove them at the request of Roskomnadzor (Russia Federal Service for Supervision of Communications). Go fascism!