Here’s how searches around SA’s student protests have spiked

Over the past few days, student protests rocking South African university campuses have dominated headlines. The protests, which kicked off at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) last week, before spreading to 14 of the country’s campuses throughout the course of this week.

We’ve already outlined how the conversation spread on Twitter, but it’s also worth taking a look at how searches around both the protest and people associated with it have spiked over the past week.

The uptick in searches for the hashtag #FeesMustFall, starting on Monday, is worth noting. As it did on social, the term appears to have overtaken searches for protests at the individual campus protests, including UCT. Most noteworthy however is how searches for South African minister of higher education Blade Nzimande have spiked in the past day or so.