Controlled Opposition: What Is It And How To Spot It?

The Daily Beagle gives some gentle advice

If you’re new to the world of independent research (read: ‘conspiracy theory’), then you may have heard the term ‘Controlled Opposition’ or ‘ConOp’ bandied about.

You might be unfamiliar with the term, or you may have some cursory understanding of what it means — some sort of traitor in your own movement — but aren’t sure on the specifics or whether or not specific people are likely to qualify.

What Is ‘Controlled Opposition’?

Controlled opposition can be as small as a single individual and as big as many large scale organisations. They claim to represent your interests in opposing whatever particular piece of corruption you’re against, but their job is to impede, undermine, slowdown, or ‘lame duck’ (read: do nothing) your efforts.

The most common example most people are likely to be familiar with are political parties claiming to ‘oppose’ something or someone, but when crunch time comes… they do absolutely nothing. They roll over, make unnecessary concessions, become limpwristed, make excuses, delay, engage in approaches that are guaranteed not to work.

You’ve seen it before. You’ve probably yelled ‘WHY AREN’T THEY CALLING IT OUT?’ or similarly.

That’s controlled opposition. Their entire point is to frustrate the efforts of your movement whilst pretending to be on your side.

How Do I Spot Controlled Opposition?

ConOps — short for ‘Controlled Opposition’ — will use a variety of distinct tactics depending on their specific objectives, however there are nearly universal red flags.

Here’s The Daily Beagle’s list (it isn’t exhaustive):

• Grandstanding (AKA ‘look at me’ tactics) in order to draw followers, this might include;

  • Shouting

  • Over-the-top bragging

  • Flashing cash

  • Flashy stunts that don’t do anything or even harm the credibility of the movement

  • Focusing on name brand more than reporting the truth

  • Constantly sloganising every few moments ‘We bring you the best at Website.com’ as if trying to sell the movement

  • Failing to credit other, less popular people

• Attempting to position themselves as ‘leader’ of a movement or a ‘figurehead’ in order to try to seize or gain control;

  • Appealing to credentials/expertise, including:

    • invented credentials

    • dubious claims to things achieved/done

    • using their credentials in ways they’re not qualified for (EG chiropractor giving cardiovascular advice, PhD theoretical doctorate giving medical advice, etc)

  • Involving themselves in everything the movement is doing, even when their appearance wasn’t asked for and isn’t relevant

  • Only holding discussions with popular people in order to gain publicity

    • Ignoring less popular people

  • Avoiding critics and ignoring criticisms of their decisions

• Making unsubstantiated claims (this is a red flag regardless of whether they’re ConOp or not);

  • Uses claims that require giant leaps of faith or ‘troll logic’ to reach

  • Rarely cites any sources for claims, or the source they do cite are websites with a dubious/unproven track record of accuracy

  • Randomly embeds non-sequiturs/trojan horse claims in statements you agree with (EG ‘these heart attacks are dangerous, therefore the DoD control the CDC’), often in the hopes you’ll like the first half and unintentionally endorse the second.

  • Patently false/ridiculous claims that discredit the movement (‘the space aliens are using their UFOs to activate 5G spirit towers to magnetise the prions’)

• Avoiding or refusing to issue corrections when called out on unsubstantiated claims

  • Can include being resistant to issuing corrections (EG only correct after lawsuit, legal threat, or too many people becoming aware)

  • Especially as a habit (resistance to retractions, or bury retractions, then make more unsubstantiated claims)

• Omitting crucial evidence (that either contradicts their claims or changes the fundamental context of what they are saying)

• Refusing to concede or acknowledge work by others (holds strongly to power)

• Regurgitating others’ work and mangling it, destroying the message

• Copy-pasting mainstream news without contributing any original research

  • Parroting lines without question

• Prior history of working in or advocating for the industry being challenged

• Posts primarily easy-to-debunk opinionated statements, rather than evidenced claims

• Engages in sloppy and lazy debate practices that are glaringly obvious even to supporters

  • Fails to cite easy-to-access evidence

  • Engages in unnecessarily questionable debate practices

• Proposes or engages in absurd lawsuits which have no chance of winning and make absolutely no legal sense, classics include:

  • First amendment litigation against private entities (First Amendment is only a legal tool against governments, government departments, etc, not private entities)

  • Attempting to invoke criminal laws in civil lawsuit settings (‘I’ll sue you for murder!’)

  • Attempting to invoke laws that only empower governments to act, not the public (EG Sherman Antitrust acts)

  • Filing the lawsuit in the wrong jurisdiction (‘I’m going to sue Texas.inc in California!’)

  • Filing a lawsuit against the wrong department (antitrust complaint against the CDC rather than FTC).

  • Unnecessarily small scale lawsuits (EG suing a single school rather than an entire school system or education board)

  • Some appeal to a foreign or international law that does not apply to private or domestic settings in the US, or requires a specific international court

    • EG invoking Nuremberg in a local State court, which actually requires the ICC Tribunal in the Hague, Netherlands… or for you to win a war and hold a military tribunal post-victory, whichever is easier

• Has little to no history of achieving anything to help the movement, or so-called ‘victories’ are trite and meaningless for the size of the organisation (EG ‘Giant Org managed to get one whole school to stop being evil’; meanwhile lone mother gets an entire State to ban a practice)

• Spends a lot of money in their movement and keeps asking for more but achieves little (money burning supporters)

• Lack of money spending transparency

• Lack of justification for said spent money/actions (and no explanation of the alternatives)

• Invents legal fiction or nonsense legal concepts that don’t exist in the real world (EG ‘I invoke the court of maritime law in a military tribunal in order to sue for breach of contract in the State of Kansas' ‘But sir Kansas doesn’t have a coastline’)

• Invents excuses constantly for why they can’t do anything, blames others, concedes way too much ground to opponents

• Makes tepid or lukewarm statements with an obvious refusal to commit even in the face of overwhelming evidence (EG ‘we know it is bad in some cases, but it may be justified in others’)

• Makes unnecessarily controversial and polarising statements that do not need to be said, fracturing the movement (usually part of ‘Grandstanding’).

• Has engaged in, or been caught in, unethical behaviour or practices that cannot be explained as a simple accident (EG theft, exposing personal information, fraud, violence, bribery etc)

• Engages in ‘Tu Quoque’ (‘you too!’) argumentum rather than admitting mistakes or errors

• They mysteriously get censored less than any other group that has been attacked, deplatformed or removed (EG flat earthers still up on YouTube)

  • Note: censorship is not validation of a message by itself. So sometimes there will be censorship ‘stunts’ where a colluding org will censor a group. The difference is, a genuine movement will be quietly censored, a ConOp will be loudly censored (‘grandstanding’). Easy way to tell: was the censorship published by the media publicly for all to see?

• Their controversial/misleading/discrediting messages get artificially promoted in mainstream media rather than buried like others’ high quality research

• Mainstream media talk about them non-stop rather than avoiding the subject altogether (media normally engage in the ‘out-of-sight, out-of-mind’ approach, like how the BBC avoided covering the anti-mandate protests in London; so if they’re giving a theory a platform or coverage you should be asking questions)

• They never seem to get fired or suffer any ill-repercussions in whatever field they’re in (or if they do, it is tepid in comparison to what others have experienced)

• They try to stir in-group fighting and attack others within the movement with token, out-of-context, twisted statements that omit context (usually, ironically, by making shallow, unevidenced accusations of someone being a ConOp)

• They seem to have an unnaturally large amount of money, or seem to be living quite well (even during an economic downturn and even whilst they report making ‘a loss’), whilst their peers are making losses/struggling financially

• They talk like you aren’t even there/don’t ever interact with the community

• They criticise the community over minor or trivial non-issues (like the display graphics or order of a discussion)

• They support the majority of what you say, but then also support a highly contentious position that conveniently divides the group

• They fail to live up to their own promises or bravado (in ways that cannot be justified and keep happening)

• Major red flag: they explicitly aid the enemy (EG allocate political funding EG Operation Warp Speed, pass bills to aid, give immunity to, pre-emptively ‘forgive’, vote in favour of, give money to, help finance, give research, etc)

Takeaways

There is no one true red flag that guarantees someone is a ConOp. Many are major issues regardless of whether a person is a ConOp — for example, refusing to correct mistakes, damages the movement, and should be rejected regardless of if they’re genuine or fraudster.

Over time, ConOps will adapt and use more subtle, more nuanced plays to avoid incriminating themselves. Some are even ‘deep cover’, where they avoid the above behaviours until they secure a good footing, and then they turn, dividing the movement.

Infiltration tactics are mainstay of governments, but they are now largely adopted by corporations who have a lot of cash to hire traitors to infiltrate and betray movements in order to suppress dissent and avoid a loss on profits.

Make Your Own Determinations

Chances are, you’ve subconsciously noticed some, many, or even all of these things in a particular person, group or movement. Odds are, you’re right.

Determining falsehoods on very technical aspects may be difficult, as it requires a technical understanding. However, ask for evidence and explanation. Don’t let supporters ‘argue for them’ (it’s easy for them to blame the footsoldiers for any mistakes if you do), hear what they believe directly from the horse’s mouth.

You don’t even need to make an explicit determination of ‘innocent’ or ‘guilty’, it might just be that their research simply isn’t rigorous enough. You can simply walk away and look for higher quality sources.

Why Won’t You Tell Us Who?

The Daily Beagle believes people should make up their own minds, based on evidence, so we won’t point fingers or make up some sort of ‘hit list’, because that would involve us relying on our credibility and assuming that we haven’t made a mistake; instead you should take the list and compare. Look at the evidence.

We largely subscribe to ignoring ConOps, and prefer to educate others how to spot them.

By us pointing fingers, you may take offence if you like the person we point at, rather than onboarding the glaring flaws they commit. Instead, we hope by internalising this list of errant behaviours and comparing, you will naturally come to this conclusion by yourself.

You can use The Daily Beagle as a baseline. Do we meet the criterion for being a ConOp? We don’t mind if you think that, as we prefer to argue from evidence.

What To Do If You Suspect A ConOp

Give the person the benefit of the doubt and challenge the erroneous assertions first, giving them a chance to respond. Be neutral. They may have made a genuine error (The Daily Beagle has done so previously, no-one is immune). Many genuine supporters are simply misguided.

If they correct a mistake, or add evidence or back up their claims, it’s just a misunderstanding.

If they fail to explain their reasoning, or the explanation they give is blatantly false, or they simply do not correct the error, you can either:

• Conserve your time, and find people who are factually accurate to work with and support (simply block, mute or ignore the ConOp and find others to follow), or;

• You can continue to follow and highlight their incorrect assertions publicly (be aware you may be attacked by supporters/followers for doing this). Note, this rarely gets people to ‘switch’.

No-one has immunity from the truth. Being popular or well-liked is not an excuse for lying, omission and dishonesty.

How To Keep ConOp Resistant

Be willing to challenge the factual accuracy of members within your own movement and circles.

Don’t be aggressive and abusive about it, however, as we all make mistakes, and being polite and friendly often is more likely to lead to a correction than being combative, aggressive or assertive. Questions work better than statements, politeness works better than abuse.

Ignore trivial mistakes (like typographical errors, spelling mistakes) unless they’re very vital to context, and focus on factual mistakes, like incorrect understanding or misleading claims.

Hopefully this helps you not get led astray by the endless array of self-appointed ‘leaders’. You are your own leader.

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