School wars, Dubai's crisis PR, and is Fabrizio cancelled?
Top Comment
BBC
4.0 • 545 Ratings
🗓️ 6 March 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A series of posts appearing to encourage violence between neighbouring UK schools has caused widespread moral panic, and prompted police forces to issue dispersal orders. But, with zero incidents reported, could the 'red vs blue' phenomenon be a phantom trend? Matt and Marianna discuss the knowledge gap between parents and younger people on social media, and how online frenzies can have dangerous real-world consequences.
Also, has Iran's retaliation to days of US-Israeli strikes exposed the reality of Dubai's flourishing influencer economy? As people in the UAE shelter from the threat of drones, content creators have been warned by the Emirati government about what they choose to share.
And, one of the world's biggest football journalists, Fabrizio Romano, is attracting criticism for a paid advert endorsing Saudi Arabia's humanitarian aid agency.
Top Comment is hosted by Marianna Spring and Matt Shea. The series producer is Laurie Kalus. The social producer is Sophie Millward. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The editor is Justine Lang. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
If you want to get in touch about something that's popped up on your feed, our email address is topcomment@bbc.co.uk or you can send us a WhatsApp on +44 330 123 9480.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | An early start here. It's time to kick off. |
| 0:10.0 | Your day. Morning! |
| 0:11.9 | What a line-up. |
| 0:13.3 | Oh, thanks very much. We do get some great guests on the show. |
| 0:16.1 | The crowd is loving this. |
| 0:18.3 | Thanks, guys. Thank you. Too kind. |
| 0:20.2 | From morning chaos to match day commentary. |
| 0:23.6 | And everything in between. |
| 0:25.0 | BBC sounds packed with personality. |
| 0:29.0 | Okay, Matt, where are you? |
| 0:30.9 | I'm currently in Thailand. |
| 0:32.3 | I can't really say too much about what I'm doing, but I'm investigating serious criminals here in Pataya, which is why I'm |
| 0:39.8 | not with you in London. Just a casual day in the life. Yeah, this is my other gig, which is |
| 0:47.3 | investigative journalism. I can say more about that later. And interesting, isn't it, that something we |
| 0:52.2 | were chatting about on the pod last week, kind of has become a big deal this week? |
| 0:56.3 | Yes. So, Polly Market, basically people made hundreds of thousands of dollars from betting on the exact timing of the U.S.'s strikes in Iran with suspicious accuracy and also sort of morbidly on the death |
| 1:13.9 | of the Ayatollah. |
| 1:14.9 | And if you are new to top comment, you can go back and listen to that episode. |
| 1:19.5 | And we every week on every episode are investigating the kind of stuff that's popping up |
| 1:24.0 | on your social media feed or just kind of across the internet, which means today we've got all sorts on the agenda. |
| 1:30.2 | So first we're going to be chatting about this thing, red versus blue, school wars. |
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