No one will ever get an argument from me on the points that:

Social Media cannot create insurgency where conditions for insurgency do not already exist;

Ideology cannot create insurgency where conditions for insurgency do not already exist;

"Malign actors" internal or external to a state cannot create insurgency where conditions for insurgency do not already exist.

Etc, etc.

But just as breakthroughs in various technologies over time have changed the character, but not the nature of war; so too have breakthroughs in information technology changed the character of governance and illegal challenges to governance; but not the nature of governance.

Some insurgency (primarily resistance insurgencies) is war. Some insurgency (primarily revolutionary insurgencies) are more accurately civil emergencies; but both are affected in character in how they begin and in how they are sustained by breakthroughs in information technologies, and social media are major part of how those technologies are operationalized.

Governments who could not long ago largely ignore the reasonable concerns of various populace groups affected by their actions (internally for most states; but for large states such as the US, externally as well); but no more. I have never been a fan of Dr. Kilcullen's "global insurgency" construct; but I do recognize that the foreign policies of the US to create a form of "virtual occupation/manipulation" of the governance of others sufficiently to create conditions of resistance insurgency among many populaces around the world. But such conditions without the ways and means to connect and synergize that energy is not much of a problem. But now those ways and means exist, and organizations such as AQ work to tap into that energy to advance their own agendas.

Governments ignore the changes to the character of governance created by advances in information and social media to their peril. There is a new standard for governance, and that standard is being set by the people affected by governance, not the governments themselves. Governments think they get to set the standards. Governments are wrong.