Paying people to be controlled opposition is expensive.
My observation is that politicians that play the controlled opposition game prefer to trick people into that position.
I've noticed that pundits on both the left and right play the game of setting up the weakest players on the opposition so that they can control them.
The left wants Alex Jones and Glenn Beck to the the definitive conservatives because it is easy to frame and manipulate these clowns.
The right promote AOC, Fetterman and related clowns as the definitive speakers on the left. It is easy to frame these people in a bad light.
BTW, Your question was
"How you can tell if someone is controlled opposition?"
I believe that a better question is:
"How can I be sure that no-one is trying to set up me as controlled opposition?"
Sorry, just seeing this now.
The government doesn't pay people to be CO, the evil collectives do and above them are the evils who own the entire world. They make trillions every year from their crimes and stealing from us by way of taxes, so sorry, I disagree that it's expensive for them.
It's almost like rich people, they get freebies all the time because morons worship rich people and want to be in their good graces or get publicity from them, so they comp them restaurants, drinks, hotels, casinos, clothes, cars, jewelry, and the list goes on.
We don't get freebies and most of us are low income upto middle class.
Now clearly it's not the same thing because they are being offered the goods for FREE and the evils are paying people to do their dirty work for them, but I wanted to give you a good example of how easy it is for the rich to get tons of things for free, especially with all of their CRIMES.
And it's not like the evils are dishing it out of their pocket, there are tons of COs who get money from us.
How many times have I donated only to find out afterward that person may have been CO.
Giving money to CO is just a business expense for the evils. They need to manipulate us within the awake and/or Truther community, so they have to be there to spy on us, they collect our names and emails and sites which goes on a list, and this is a war, war costs money.
Who do you know who has been set up as a CO without them realizing it?