Yes, there are. A popular protest (and even riots!) should come entirely or at least in the vast majority from a sentiment spread across the people. If it's 500 youngsters that come out of the blue following a campaign orchestrated most probably by a foreign state actor, then it's not legitimate.

Yes, we could start doing verbal and mental gymnastics about how an external actor could be legitimately interested to try and drive the political landscape of a country one month before elections, sure. But it's not the point here.

Recent studies have shown that performing mental gymnastics could delay the onset of dementia.