They're not resisting a government that has entered the information warfare age, where every police station has SWAT gear and tanks and helicopters.

Except heavily armed populaces have resisted SWAT gear and tanks and helicopters before, but also: Even just forcing escalation to such methods is a win for the rebels/resistance/etc. There's a reason even oppressive governments don't jump straight to tanks and helicopters when they have a revolution that hasn't quite devolved into civil war. Besides, there's no guarantee the people manning the tanks and helicopters are going to be willing to fire into crowds. In a revolutionary scenario the government's grip on its armed forces tends to be shaky at best, and doing things like whipping out tanks to put down rebellion tends to alienate people who might've supported it otherwise. Hell, sometimes governments just give up instead of going through all this. Obviously armed revolution (which doesn't necessarily mean civil war) isn't foolproof, but the hurdle to winning isn't as big as people around here seem to think, since the very fact that such a thing is happening means there's a sympathetic cause that will make some fraction of the army/police/etc not want to fight.