Original subtitles

Behind me is the Palace of Westminster,

better known as the Houses of Parliament.

It's the place where the people who govern this country meet,

creating laws, directing foreign policy,

and collecting tax for the good of the nation and the wider world.

But are our democratically-elected governments really in control?

Or are we governed by a shadowy elite who have a

far more sinister agenda?

In short,

who really does rule the world?

There's always been secret societies.

I mean, this is not a modern phenomenon.

They go back, probably, thousands of years.

These could be societies that bring together the rich and powerful or

certain sections of the rich and powerful to talk secretly behind

the backs of the rest of us.

It might be a church within a church, like Opus Dei for example.

They are out there, but they're shadowy and very sensitive to

any kind of light being shown on their dealings.

Members of secret societies over the centuries and still today

are alleged and believed to work behind the scenes

to rule the world.

There are secret societies.

But it's more complicated than that.

There are the ones we know of,

and there are undoubtedly the ones we don't know of.

For centuries now, one group seems to have attracted more conspiracy

theories than any other.

Their UK headquarters

is in this building behind me in Central London.

I'm of course talking about the Freemasons.

Now, past members have included powerful figures such

as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington,

and even Winston Churchill.

And the group's secrecy and arcane rituals have led many

to question their true intentions.

One of the most interesting so-called secret societies

is the Freemasons.

In its day, your kings were members.

Anyone who believed in God,

it didn't matter what religion you were, could be a member.

But it was sort of the elite of society.

Today, Freemasons are policemen, taxi drivers,

anybody who wants to join can join.

And when you meet another member from another lodge and you find out

they're a Freemason, there's that instant trust,

so you can kind of see where there's a history of favouritism.

Men will always want money and power,

and one way of getting it is to bond together

with other people who have money and power to further their aims

and very largely keep it from other people.

Hence a secret society.

We have different levels of secrecy.

Obviously, the Rosicrucians, the Illuminati.

I've never met somebody who calls himself a

Rosicrucian or an Illuminati,

so they're entirely secret,

But some secret societies will have websites.

You know, the Freemasons, Opus Dei,

but you'll never get into one of their meetings.

So, you've got different levels of secrecy and you have to ask

yourself what are they talking about.

Conspiracy theories about the Freemasons

are clearly nothing new.

But to find out what actually goes on behind closed doors,

I'm going to meet a Freemason for myself.

This is the Andaz Hotel next to Liverpool Street Station

in Central London.

It looks like one of any number of hotels,

but during a refurbishment in the 1990s,

a very interesting room was uncovered.

Professor Robert Lomax is a Freemason and author

of the international bestseller The Hiram Key,

which opened the lid on their secret goings on.

He's agreed to show me the room and reveal what the

Freemasons get up to.

Look at this.

It's not what I was expecting at all.

Look at these doors.

Ah, well, we've got to keep out all-comers

and intruders to Freemasonry.

And can we go in?

Well, we'll have to tell them we're here first.

Ah, should I tell them you're here or me? Ah, both.

I'll tell them you first.

And then I'll tell them I'm here.

That was a proper Masonic knock.

I couldn't possibly comment.

HE LAUGHS

Oh, my goodness, look at this!

Oh, wow.

That's extraordinary!

It's impressive, isn't it?

And no-one knew that this was here?

Not for about 50-odd years.

It got closed during the wars and it was only found

when they refurbished the Great Eastern Hotel...

..in about 1990.

There's a lot of marble.

A lot of marble, some black, some white.

So, how old is this?

About 130 years.

And this is a...

Masonic lodge room. Masonic lodge room.

Yes. Or a temple.

A Masonic temple.

And so, what goes on in a room like this?

Our lodges hold meetings in here. OK.

Now, if we were to meet for the first time, do we...

Would we do a sort of special handshake?

Only if we were doing it formally in the lodge.

But I don't mind shaking your hand. Right, OK.

LAUGHTER

How would you know if I was a Freemason?

How would I know if you were one?

Well, you'd have to give me a Masonic grip.

How's that?

Well, there's a different Masonic grip for every degree,

so I know about 15 different ones.

I'll give you one. OK.

Is that a Masonic grip you're doing now?

That's a Masonic grip I'm giving you. All right, OK.

Now, you give it to me back.

That grip demands a word. Give me that word.

Um...

You're going to have to help me out.

I'm afraid you're not a Freemason.

You were stubbornly wrong anyway. Oh, was I?

What about the kind of rolled-up trouser leg?

Oh, we only do that when we bring them in for the first time.

We don't do it every time. OK.

Secret societies are, not surprisingly, secret.

They don't publish their list of members.

So, for members to identify themselves to other members,

there's a sign, there's a gesture.

In Freemasonry, it was always a special handshake.

Today, you know, the Illuminati, is that a secret society?

I don't know.

But you do see a high propensity of media figures, politicians,

and artists doing the sign of the horn.

Is that how we communicate today?

It's always been something like that.

So, talk me through the initiation ceremony, Robert.

As an initiate, you're brought in in a state of darkness.

You're blindfolded.

Right. You'll be dressed in a most peculiar manner,

which I'm sure you wouldn't want to be seen in public in. OK.

And you would then be paraded around the lodge like that.

So, let's parade around. OK. I'll close my eyes,

imagine I'm blindfolded. I'll give you an impression of what it's like.

Imagine I've got my outfit. Ready? Left foot first. OK.

So, we're going to step.

And you'd be guided by a deacon who would take you right

round the lodge. Right.

And we would stop at the corner,

and we would turn. OK.

It's quite disconcerting. Is this part of it to try and...

You're intending to be disconcerted.

I want you to be nervous and afraid.

I am nervous. That's for certain.

You're going to trust me to guide you. I fully trust you, Robert.

I fully trust you.

You can open your eyes now. OK.

You couldn't if you were an initiate.

You would've had various parts of your anatomy

displayed to view.

Not just your leg, but your naked left breast as well.

Really? Yeah. And one of your arms.

W-Why is that?

To prove that you are not a slave and are a free man.

So, the Freemasons have made a big deal about opening up

in recent years.

But then you have to ask why bother to be a Freemason if there isn't

a degree of secrecy about it.

And they've admitted that there are secret handshakes,

they've admitted that there are secret signs between them.

I mean, the whole purpose of a society like this is to bring

together people for their mutual aid,

mutual protection, mutual interest.

And by their very nature,

they're going to be secret.

It sounds like there's quite a lot of procedure involved.

There's an awful lot of procedural ritual. Right.

That's why you couldn't identify yourself as a Mason. No.

There was a whole series of six or seven questions we would've

had to go through.

But where's the kind of entertainment value?

I mean, where, why...

Where's the...? It's not about entertainment. No.

It's about self-improvement. OK.

It's the oldest philosophical self-improvement society

in the world.

And it's 600 years old.

And that's what, essentially, being a Mason is all about?

It's all about learning about yourself.

The first degree teaches you to face up to your fears.

You come in blindfolded, you have to trust the lodge to guide you.

Right. The second degree teaches you to develop your mind

and your intellect and study the hidden mysteries

of nature and science.

And the third degree teaches you about death.

You're going to die. Right. Live with it.

Because of the secrecy of the whole thing to do with masonry,

it's bound to attract conspiracy theories.

I mean, it seems to be,

"It's sinister, it's pagan,"

and the big one of course is you're sworn to secrecy,

absolutely sworn to secrecy,

and because of that we...

If there's nothing wrong with it,

why do you have to be sworn to secrecy?

And of course, one of the one of the early symbols of Freemasonry

is that you actually draw your

right hand across your throat,

which is actually symbolising that if I ever tell the secrets

of Freemasonry,

I will have my throat cut.

Despite the Freemasons having official buildings and even websites

for all to see,

there are still the strict rituals and cryptic symbols that surround

them which cloak this society in a degree of secrecy.

David Barrett is a journalist who has written a book

about secret societies, in which the Freemasons feature.

So, David, what is it that the Freemasons actually do?

When they get together, it's basically a gentlemen's club.

It's middle-aged, middle class,

mainly white men without their womenfolk,

having fun, doing rituals...

Rituals are always fun to do.

And the circle is a bit weird,

and then going for a good meal and a few drinks afterwards.

Most of us would think it's quite strange -

the arcane rituals, the dressing up, the symbolism.

Why do they do that?

I've been told that it's

the importance of initiation, of joining something,

of passing from the old man to the new man.

And part of symbolism is a block of stone,

a very rough block of stone called the "rough ashlar".

And through becoming a Mason,

that block of stone is then smoothed out,

and then you have the smooth ashlar,

which is clean cut, polished and it's symbolic of the change

from the old man to the new man.

Why do you have to go through all of these different degrees?

And, of course, reaching the third degree.

It all sounds sinister and I think the problem we have is that

so many people have joined Masons, Illuminati,

and all these other secret societies is because they do genuinely believe

they are going to get something extra out of it.

Conspiracy theorists say that there is another level,

a secret level to Freemasonry which has nothing to do with any form

of worship or reverence for a divine being.

And, basically, is about ruling the world.

It's an interesting theory for which there is actually no evidence.

It might be true.

But if we're talking evidence, we can't go much further than that.

So to you, David, the idea that there is some kind of dark,

hidden conspiracy is completely nonsense?

Yeah. I've heard so many books claim that Freemasons is Satanic.

It's incredibly corrupt,

it's got fingers in all sorts of pies everywhere.

Yeah, I'm sure it does in some ways,

but if you've got people in judicial and in the police,

you'll, at some point, get a bit of fiddling going on

if there's corruption going on,

but the whole Satanic conspiracy thing is rubbish.

Even if the Freemasons aren't a satanic-worshipping,

world-domination focused society,

they have been associated with some shadowy incidents.

In the 1980s, an unexplained death and the apparent Masonic symbolism

surrounding it added fuel to the conspiracy theories.

In June 1982, Roberto Calvi,

the former chairman of Italy's largest private bank,

was found hanging here under Blackfriars Bridge.

Now, the police initially ruled that the death was a suicide,

but later reopened the inquiry as a murder investigation.

But they never found the killer.

And what made this mystery even more intriguing was the symbolism

surrounding the way in which he was hanged,

and Calvi's ties to several shadowy organisations.

Roberto Calvi was one of the Vatican's most

trusted financial advisers.

His links with the Catholic state were so close that Roberto Calvi

was known as "God's Banker".

But behind the facade of respectability,

Calvi had become entangled in a web of evil and corruption.

I think he was murdered because he was in charge of the huge

Italian bank, which had gone bankrupt.

And he and the bank were involved in money laundering

for the mafia.

And the mafia lost a lot of money.

It's interesting that they had to be so public about the killing

because the whole idea of the Freemasons and all these other

societies is secrecy.

So, surely, kill him somewhere, burn the body,

get rid of it, he's gone.

I think it's all down to the power of the thing.

These people believe themselves all powerful

and they're giving a message to other people -

"Don't mess with us."

P2 came to public knowledge through the death of Roberto Calvi,

and it immediately became apparent when investigations began

that he was closely linked with P2, with the Vatican Bank,

with the Mafia, and with a rather unwholesome money trail.

Investigations, subsequent many investigations,

haven't got to the bottom of what happened and why

Calvi was murdered,

but the P2 lodge, on all accounts,

was heavily implicated.

The problem with looking at what happened to P2, yes,

officially it was closed down,

but many of its members actually went on to do big things.

Silvio Berlusconi was a member of P2

And, you know, it hasn't harmed him.

To this day, it's still unclear whether P2 had any involvement

in Calvi's death.

And many unanswered questions surround this secret organisation.

Some say they were a shadow government with direct influence

over Italian politics.

And others, that they were just a group of people intent

on furthering their careers and gaining power and wealth.

Either way,

could such secret meetings actually go unnoticed today?

We live in the modern era of smartphones,

with cameras, instant communication, and social media.

And so, the idea that the elite of the world meet behind closed

doors to discuss the issues of the day seems hard to imagine.

I mean, wouldn't we know about it?

Well, in fact, we do.

Because once a year, there is indeed a gathering

of a group of the world's most powerful individuals

from the spheres of politics, banking and multinational companies

It is known as the Bilderberg Group.

The Bilderberg Group was created in 1954 to strengthen

the relationship between Europe and the United States.

It's still alive today and while it's mostly secret in today's world

of the media and the Internet, it's not so secret.

We know that sometimes celebrities go.

Hillary Clinton, for instance, is known to have gone,

and they meet once a year for a standard meeting.

So, while we don't have a list of its members,

we are aware of the kinds of people,

the politicians, the celebrities,

the bankers, the CEOs of Fortune 100 companies.

Those are the kinds of people who belong to the Bilderberg Group.

Now, what they talk about, what's their influence,

that remains a mystery.

There are a great many societies and of course the most successful

secret society will be the one that nobody's ever heard

about because it's secret.

The less secret successful secret societies one does hear about,

and there are some that are downright flamboyant.

They like dressing up in their rituals and the whole thing,

and the usual idea of the Masons is boys dressing up

and having a few drinks,

and, you know, a bit of ritual and funny handshakes,

and basically networking for business.

Due to the secrecy surrounding the meetings,

it's pretty much impossible to find out what was said in them.

And this, plus the nature of the people involved,

have led to the group attracting so much speculation,

that they've even been brought up in Parliament.

One person who has researched the group

is Professor Andrew Kakabadse,

co-author of the book Bilderberg People.

What's the point of the Bilderberg Group?

What is it that they're trying to achieve?

What it is is a meeting.

It's three days a year and it brings together the elites from

finance, business, media, education, health, security services,

and they discuss issues and their issues are to discuss

and enlighten each other and to form relationships.

And one of the original intentions is to form relationships

so that we don't need to have international conflict.

If you read through a list of the delegates at the

2016 Bilderberg meeting, they're not household names.

Many of them are CEOs and chief executives of very large companies,

not necessarily in the limelight as individuals,

but these are people with an immense amount of reach and influence.

And at their meetings, which takes place in a different

location each year,

they discuss under Chatham House rules.

In other words, there can be no discussion outside of the group

for topics that interest them.

They can talk openly about anything, so it could be terrorism,

it could be financial crisis,

it could be trade unions or whatever.

They can talk about it there and they know that what they say

doesn't get out of the room,

and since the mid-1950s when this organisation was set up,

nothing has leaked out.

Why the secrecy surrounding the Bilderberg Group?

It's not secrecy, it's privacy.

You need people to build trust with each other.

You need people to feel free to talk to each other,

and people do sign an agreement that

they won't talk to the press afterwards.

But that is to maintain trust.

The security part is because you have elites there,

so it's privacy and security which makes it feel like secrecy,

but it's not.

It's just like any top team, any board of any company

going away for a two-day strategy meeting and they want to discuss

behind closed doors.

Of all these secret shadowy organisations,

the Bilderberg Group is perhaps one that worries the public the most.

And in a world of transparency, allegedly,

of the Freedom of Information Act,

and the internet and everything being democratised,

in theory, it seems like a bit of an anomaly.

And the press are kept out. They really don't want people peering in.

And I think that's why it generates so much mystery,

because if they're there to do good,

why not tell the world about it?

It is a secret forum.

I mean, they will admit that they hold their meetings in secret.

But it's almost become a place where future world leaders are

vetted before they become a world leader.

So, Tony Blair was invited there.

Bill Clinton was invited there.

And it's interesting that one of its most leading members,

Denis Healey, who was a major politician in the 1970s,

when asked is the Bilderberg Group aiming

to create a one-world government,

he said that's not a wholly unfair supposition.

And that's from a member of the Bilderberg Group.

How influential are they?

For me, the number one group in the world. Really?

Yeah, absolutely. But do you think that things that were discussed

in the Bilderberg Group would influence, say,

American foreign policy or...?

I would've said completely. Really? Completely, as a basis.

So, if you get a number of people together,

we've had Clinton, who's been there, we've had Bush, who's been,

so a Democrat and Republican has been there.

Please tell me the difference between the foreign policy

that Clinton pushed, Bush pushed,

Obama pushed, and now Trump is pushing.

It's exactly the same.

Now, is that by accident?

I don't think so.

It's a way of thinking that what you believe as President is

the right way to think.

This is the American freedoms, these are the American values,

this is what we're trying to do to police the world.

And you've accepted it. It's just like a philosophy.

So, if the Bilderbergers are anything,

they're more like a church.

It's a way of thinking, a set of values, an approach,

but they stop there.

They don't put any of that into practice

because at the end of the day, it's just a three day meeting.

But the Bilderberg Group isn't the only annual get together

of the world's elite.

Each year in mid-July, there's another gathering.

This time, a two-week encampment deep within the

Redwood Forests of California.

It's known as Bohemian Grove.

And what makes these meetings even more intriguing is the utterly

bizarre rituals that go on there.

Bohemian Grove is a fascinating all-men private club that could very

well be the biggest secret society on the globe today.

They meet once a year in California in a really big outdoor,

sort of nature park that has the most pagan sculptures imaginable.

You know, owl statues of all sorts of weird people and regalia.

And figureheads go there.

Politicians go there.

If those rituals and those kind of events are actually happening,

then, you know, that's pretty dark indeed.

Bohemian Grove, once again, has a guest list that includes

ex-US presidents, prominent business leaders, senior media executives,

and other members of the elite.

Only this time, they're all male.

Secret societies are nothing new.

You had them in Ancient Mesopotamia.

You had them in Medieval England.

You had them in Nazi Germany and we continue to have them today.

And I think in one sense, it's about empowerment,

it's about the sense of breaking away from the mainstream and

feeling a sense of belonging.

But also it's about advancing particular agendas,

about self-importance as well, but also about pursuing

what could potentially be sinister agendas,

but which may be completely benevolent and we just don't know

because they are so secretive.

Secrecy is quite a damaging idea and the fact that nobody knows

what is discussed at these meetings means that people will endlessly

speculate about the contents and it doesn't take long for people

to assume that they must be up to no good.

The goings-on at Bohemian Grove do seem incredibly strange,

but perhaps one explanation is that the United States has much more

of a culture of secret societies and fraternities,

especially at universities.

So, perhaps these strange ceremonies are simply a throwback

to their student days, albeit on a far bigger budget.

One of the most infamous university secret societies is

Skull and Bones at Yale.

Ceremonies take place in the "Tomb",

an almost windowless brownstone hall.

And there'd been stories that screams can be heard coming from it

during the initiation ceremonies,

that men lie naked in coffins,

and that its members worship skulls.

And once again, it has a prestigious membership list,

including three former US presidents.

Once again, I'm meeting David Barrett to find out if this really

can all be just a coincidence.

So, what are the benefits of being part

of one of these secretive organisations?

I think a lot of it is just simply,

"I'm in a club that nobody else is in." Yeah.

15 people a year...

15 students a year, of the whole of the Yale,

belong to Skull and Bones.

So,

in the entirety of its existence, since 1832,

there have only been a few thousand members. Right.

15 a year doesn't amount up to that many.

There are only a few hundred members alive at any time.

But they do tend to be quite influential people.

Very little is known about them, to be quite honest with you,

because they are so secret.

But they have ceremonies inside the Tomb,

a red velvet room with skulls and bones in it.

The initiates, every year, go through the most ridiculous

ceremonies of mock murder,

they have to lie naked in a coffin.

But the whole thing, I believe, is quite sinister.

And I do genuinely believe that the Skull and Bones Society

is a society, like the Illuminati and various others,

that are really looking for world domination.

Is there anything sinister about these secret

groups in society?

In a way, you could maybe say so in that...

..President Bush Senior,

surrounded himself with Bones members. Right.

With um...

The current members are known as "Knights". Right.

Past members are called "Patriarchs",

and Bush surrounded himself in his administration

with patriarchs of Skull and Bones.

So, it was jobs for the boys?

It was jobs for the boys, his mates, people he could trust

because they'd been in the same club as him.

These societies are elitists.

There is a lot of wining and dining and quaffing champagne and all that

kind of stuff and networking,

but essentially the secrecy comes from their perception, at least,

that they are important.

And the sort of things that are being discussed could have

consequences and some key players from the global arena

like politicians and merchants and financials are all together

in a way that could very easily be portrayed as some sort of unholy

alliance of diabolical parliaments.

So, they try to avoid that because that's not good publicity.

But at the same time, yes, they are elitist and they probably

don't want that to be out in the open either.

So is that the answer then?

The great force that is shaping our world is money

and the people you know.

Do the conspiracy theorists' claims stand up at all?

In recent years, there have been scientific studies to test

whether conspiracy theories could be accurate by looking

at whether the deception could really be kept under wraps

by the people involved.

Something physicist Dr David Grimes knows plenty about.

Often, people get frustrated by conspiracy theorists

because they're frustrated with their refusal to look

at the established evidence.

Is there not a way in which you can disprove

a conspiracy theory?

In science, there's no way to prove a negative.

I can never tell you anything with exact certainty is a "no".

I can tell you it's very, very, very, very, very unlikely.

One of the reasons I did my little bit of research on the plausibility

of different conspiracy theories holding for a long time is that

I kind of wanted to play devil's advocate.

I do understand people's suspicions and needs.

I wanted to understand, "OK, look let's take all that,

"let's pretend there is a conspiracy.

"Let's see how long it will be likely to last.

"Let's see how hard it would be to keep it a secret."

And when you put the numbers in,

it is really difficult to keep secrets for a long time.

It's gotten even harder to keep a secret in the Information Age.

And yet, we still kind of have a romantic belief of we

think people can keep secrets like that,

and they really can't.

It's always easy to be tempted to look for conspiracies

because we know secret societies exist.

"Do they rule the world?"

I'm tempted to say, in some ways, they must do,

because most people are so bloody apathetic,

that anybody who has the nous to get together and say

"Look, we want to change it this way and that way,"

and, you know, be it for their own good or the other people's good,

like the Masons originally,

and say we're doing it because we perceive this is the way society

should go and we're going to make it go that way.

One of the most enduring conspiracy theories is that we're, in some way,

governed by some shadowy cabal that governs the way we live our lives.

Why are we fascinated by those kind of stories?

Because I think when really powerful people get together in a group,

that is fascinating.

I'm fascinated by it.

I don't necessarily believe that they're up to sinister machinations

or nefarious plotting,

but the fact that they're doing that and that we don't know about it

means that we're going to fill in that gap.

I do think it's fascinating in isolation.

And I see why people who have this kind of new world order view

of the world would think that's where the power centre is.

It's also putting a narrative on things.

This event happens and we want to connect this event to everything

in the world that this is being, you know,

we're like puppets being dictated to.

And I think that's very easy to subscribe to.

And I think it's quite alluring.

It kind of gives everything a sense of meaning.

It's perhaps the wrong meaning and

people have inferred the wrong thing from it,

but it's understandable why people do.

There's been a huge revival of interest and belief in

secret societies and brotherhoods and conspiracies running the world.

I mean, it's incredible.

You get people who believe there's a deep state that is running

our political reality.

You get people who believe the Illuminati and the Knights Templar

are running our society and really pulling the strings.

So, a massive revival in belief,

but also, you know, there are still secret societies.

They do exist.

It's really being able to discern between what is fiction

and what is fact.

One of the most recent secret societies to come under

the spotlight is Opus Dei,

popularised by Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

Conspiracy theorists claim that they are an elitist secretive

cult-like group who maintain an extremely high level of control

over its members.

Opus Dei was founded in Spain as a fairly hardline conservative

Catholic organization and one of the most notable things

about it is that membership is by invitation-only.

So, naturally, there are questions about what is Opus Dei,

what is its mission and what does it do.

No-one is quite sure the reality of what they do.

There's about 100,000 members today.

And on one hand, we're led to believe they're hired assassins

for the Vatican, and the other hand, we're told they're a pious,

monk-like, self-flagellation, doing pertinence,

but no-one's really sure.

All we know for certain is that they appear to be quite dark.

For some people, they're just a charitable Vatican organization,

but for others, they're a much more sinister band

of religious zealots whose end is unclear.

But again, because they're cloaked in secrecy,

that is kind of a fertile breeding ground for all sorts of conspiracies

and rumours to swirl and embrace them.

I think because they are a very stern, strict,

and also brainwashing organization,

and people who've left Opus Dei have talked about the way

in which that they've been worked over psychologically,

they've also opened themselves up to all manner of accusations

about being a hit squad, about being the enforcers,

bumping people off or whatever.

I think some of this we have to say is fanciful.

But Opus Dei does itself no favours by the way that it operates,

and by the fact that people who leave the organization

come back to us with such grim testimonies.

Just how secret and influential Opus Dei and other groups

are is questionable.

It seems like it's very difficult to keep conspiracies quiet.

And so, perhaps we should be less concerned with some shadowy group

that lurks behind the scenes and rather focus on the elite

who govern in front of our very eyes,

in a world where money can still mean power.

And that's not the only problem.

During the 2016 US presidential election campaign,

the news stories that people engaged with most on social media

were not written by the major media outlets.

They were totally fictional.

For many people, the decision as important as who should be

the next president of the United States was quite

possibly based on information that simply wasn't true.

But where did these news stories come from?

Political campaigning has changed dramatically over the last 20 years.

A case of going out and kissing a few babies in a photo shoot,

to just hundreds of years ago to just buying a few extra beers

to the guys in the local inn,

to this day, of course, with social media being what it is,

you can now reach millions of people with just a tweet.

Who knows how many of us have shadowy beings that might be pulling

the strings and how many deals have been done?

"I'll give you this in exchange for that," and how when it seems

as though the course of politics is already decided via elections

and politicians being frank about their intentions,

in fact, there are these unseen debts of obligation

that need to be serviced,

otherwise these individuals might be ruined.

In 2017,

the term for such false news stories was added to the dictionary -

Fake News.

It's not actually a modern phenomenon,

but the age of the internet and social media has meant such

stories reach a far wider audience,

and ascertaining what is real or fake is becoming

increasingly more difficult.

Will Moy is the director of Full Fact,

an organization that checks the facts in today's

government and newspapers.

And with so-called "fake news" on the rise,

he has his work cut out.

What does "fake news" mean to you?

Fake news is, more than anything else,

it's a label that politicians who want to avoid questions

throw at the media.

It's actually a really dangerous thing.

You hear presidents, prime ministers and ministers on the TV,

on the radio saying, "Oh, that's fake news,"

because they don't want to answer questions.

That's a really dangerous thing.

But actually, there's a whole set of questions which include

why are there governments trying to push

inaccurate information online.

We know that's something, for example,

the Russian government's been trying to do in a concerted way.

There are questions about how inaccurate information spreads

online and you can share it on your social media.

And there's no easy way of knowing whether what you're sharing is true

or false at the speed you're sharing at.

So, there are lots of issues about how information spreads now

and how we know what to trust,

but, actually, that label, "fake news", is just dangerous.

Fake news is basically being created by people who are probably

jealous of somebody else, or want to control it in a way.

And there's nothing better than creating something true or false

because once it's been in a newspaper or on the internet,

then, guys, it's in print and it's fact, it's real,

and I'm afraid no matter what people say, once they've read it,

they believe it and you can bring down people,

you can bring down organisations,

you can bring down governments literally by creating fake news,

and with the internet as it is, fake news is on the rise big time.

How is it possible in today's age to believe what we read online?

I think that's the thing that's becoming difficult for all of us.

Actually, the easiest thing is to shut down and say,

"Well, it's all lies, so I won't bother,"

but, actually, there's important things you want to know.

So, the question is how do you find them and how do you pick them out

from around all the mess.

For us, it's about finding claims that you think are important

and then tracing them back and be able to find sources you can trust.

So, we're quite lucky to have official statistics that

are broadly pretty trustworthy,

and are independently scrutinised

that you can go back to.

So, that's one area where you can find information you trust.

Now, not everyone has time to listen to a politician and trace everything

all the way back and that's what fact checkers do.

So, we're a short cut, if you like, for letting people not just hear

claims that seem important,

but actually have all of that paper trail

all the way back that you can judge for yourself.

The power of the shadowman is completely changed.

I mean, it's no more these guys with umbrellas, bowler hats,

and...the bank.

It's changed. The most powerful people now in the world

are the people that control Amazon and Google and Facebook

and they are the new movers and shakers of the world.

We're only ever a few clicks away from

coming across groups of people who believe that the government

is somehow controlled by some dark and secretive organization,

some kind of cabal.

Is there any evidence to suggest that this is the case?

Well, I and my colleagues at Full Fact have spent the last seven

years on the outside of government, staring in in minute detail,

and, frankly, the idea of it as controlled at all is looking a bit

thin at the moment.

We've had three years with two general elections, a referendum,

but I'm pretty sure it didn't go the way the powers that be expected.

The idea that there's a lot of control is beginning

to look farfetched.

So, no, I don't think there's magical control happening somewhere.

Sometimes it doesn't seem like there's that much control

happening anywhere, but what we have seen, I think, in the last sort

of seven years while we've been operating,

is they're that much more exposed to outside scrutiny

than perhaps we thought they were when we started.

It's difficult to know what to believe.

And while there is evidence of secret societies existing

and having meetings behind closed doors,

we still don't really know what's discussed and what effect, if any,

it has on society.

What we do know is there are enough fanciful claims of rituals,

assassinations and global domination that have fuelled

conspiracy theories for centuries.

There have been secret societies since the dawn of time and these

exist across the world.

In Asia, there are the Yakuza and the Triads.

In Italy, we have the Camorra and the Mafia

and Opus Dei.

There are any number of secret societies.

It's unarguable the Illuminati were real.

What's interesting is

what people assume that they're up to.

Some of them I'm sure are absolutely benign,

but when one looks at events like the murder of Roberto Calvi,

some of them are not benign.

You know, the idea is that you have these societies that have secrets

that they are willing to pass on to initiates under great

secret circumstances.

Yeah. That presupposes that the secrets are worth having.

And, actually, I just have come to the conclusion that just

because something is secret,

it's not necessarily right or worth having.

It's really tough to say if there is demonstrable

impact of secret societies today.

You know what, I suspect there is,

but I don't think it's any society that we're aware of.

It's not the Skull and Bones.

It's not Bilderberg.

It's not the Freemasons.

It's going to be some nameless group of puppet masters who we'll never

know about, but who are probably influencing everything

from the world economy to the weather.

We started with a question...

Are our democratically elected governments really in control?

Well, the conspiracy theories are perhaps just that - theories.

Whenever something goes on behind closed doors,

there's going to be speculation.

By their nature, they can't be proved.

You either believe them or you don't.

And so rather than being concerned with the idea of a shadowy elite

manipulating our governments, maybe we should be thinking

about the nature of the elites and governments that we have right

in front of us.

We live in a world where money can still buy you power

and where what we read to inform our opinions may not be true at all.

And maybe that's the real conspiracy.

I'll see you next time.

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