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It's incredibly difficult to engineer a protest–particularly in a repressive regime–out of nothing.No. It may have been difficult to do so in the past for the CIA (or other foreign powers) because they had limited avenues to directly influence foreign citizens as they had limited control over foreign media or foreign communication platforms (to control the flow of information).
Today, a large part of both communication and media in nearly all countries happen over the internet, a medium that has been usurped by western tech companies. The role of online social media (like Facebook and WhatsApp) in fomenting riots and genocide is well documented and researched (e.g. genocide in Myanmar).
Look at all the meaningless so called "youth protests" (youth who obviously have grown up consuming media and, communicating on the internet) that have happened in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh or the "colour revolutions". (India was the only exception where it didn't turn violent because its then leaders knew how to genuinely deal democratically with the protestors, but it still resulted in India's democratic fall as it allowed a right-wing authoritarian leader to capture power). In Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh the protests became directionless violent "revolutions" to overthrow an elected government, and illegally transfer power to a bunch of inexperienced "leaders". Then (like what has happened in Bangladesh) they seek to exclude and ban certain political leaders and / or political parties from participating in a new "democratic" election, ensuring an easy win for the opposition. It is then claimed what a success this "democratic" youth revolution has been (and used as fodder to brainwash the youths in some other country).
Youths are easy targets here because they are hooked to the internet and are politically naive.
China was quite astute in this aspect to ensure that their internet didn't fall into the hands on western tech companies. They made sure that their own tech companies dominated in China, and were ruthless in not allowing western tech companies to compete successfully. This is why the west has found it so hard to foment any similar "online social media" revolutions there. And why the west were so obsessed about getting control over TikTok. (Note that this has nothing to do with "democracy" - it's a political necessity that if you want to be a sovereign country and do not want a foreign power to have influence in your country, it is essential to ensure that foreigners don't control your media or communication platform. This is why everyone's talking about "digital sovereignty" and banning teens from social media).
(Sadly, it isn't just the "west" - every country is now using the internet against nations they consider hostile, and doing some form of information warfare to influence foreign elections).