Pueblo woman files lawsuit against Facebook alleging ‘malicious’ harm to daughter

FACEBOOK LOGO
AP
The logo for Facebook appears on screens at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York.

A Pueblo woman has filed a lawsuit against Facebook’s parent company, Meta, alleging the platform intentionally inflicted “reckless, wanton, malicious [and] fraudulent” harm on her 13-year-old daughter. 

Cecelia Tesch said in the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court of Colorado on July 20th, that the addictive nature of Facebook led “to body dysmorphia, eating disorder, self-harm, severe anxiety, depression,” among other health effects. 

Tesch is represented by a Denver branch of the massive, Florida-based personal injury law firm Morgan and Morgan. It’s not their first experience suing the world’s largest social media company. In 2018, the firm claimed in a class-action lawsuit that Facebook illegally collected and sold user data through a series of personality quizzes on the platform.

Other lawsuits from a pair of Kentucky families also made headlines this week for claiming the company’s Instagram service increases the likelihood of mental health problems in children — especially depression, anxiety and anorexia in teenage girls — and that the company’s own internal research has shown this. 

Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Colorado lawsuit.