Editor, RE: "Should social media be regulated?” (The New Times, August 20).

I agree with Lonzen Rugira that social media should be allowed to flourish without the heavy hand of regulation. But the absence of regulation does not mean condoning lawlessness and criminality, no matter where it is committed from.

Defamation, libel, fraud or any other illegal act remain so no matter the medium utilised to perpetrate them.

As such, they should receive no forbearance just because they are committed via social or any other IT-enabled new media; they should attract the same penalties as would be applicable were they committed in the traditional media arena.

It is the offence that must attract legal sanction, not the medium used to commit it. Mwene Kalinda