Siam Lee was among top online searches for women - Google SA

Siam Lee, a Durban escort in her 20s, was one of the most popular topics that South Africans searched for online in 2018.

Search-engine giant Google announced the results of its 2018 Year in Search on Wednesday, revealing that South Africans had searched millions of times for details of the young woman's death and the arrest of a 30-year-old businessman.

Lee was held captive for more than 24 hours before she was bludgeoned to death and her body set alight in a secluded sugarcane field in New Hanover in central KwaZulu-Natal.

She was allegedly snatched by the businessman from a brothel.

Acumen Media analyst Tonya Khoury told TimesLIVE that statistics showed that Lee made an impact across all social media at the beginning of the year when the country learnt of her death. 

"It is only natural to feel disgusted and horrified when one hears a story of this nature and we don’t want to look away. We have to read more and more because our mind can’t grasp the detail and it touches every person’s heart as we all have a mother, sister, daughter or friend that we fear for," she said.

Khoury said the sentiments around the story were negative.

"It also brings to the fore other cases like #JusticeforBianca #Justice4Reeva. It is our feeling of frustration with our failing justice system that increases with each new story," she said.

"The demographics show an even split of men and women talking about the story, which is encouraging." 

The 10 women who were most frequently searched for on Google were: Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Meghan Markle, Sbahle Mpisane, Aretha Franklin, Khloe Kardashian, Sophie Ndaba, Cheryl Zondi, Demi Lovato, Lerato Sengadi and Siam Lee.

Google SA said the searches showed that South Africans had a keen interest in local celebrities, news and events, while the most-asked questions list revealed an awareness of, and curiosity about, what was happening in the world.

Google processes more than 40,000 search queries every second, translating into more than a billion searches per day and 1.2-trillion searches a year worldwide.