The virtual closet: is Facebook changing the way people come out?

Thanks to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, many aspects of our private lives are made public — whether it’s where we ate dinner last night or the person with whom we chose to eat that meal.

Of course, most of these bits and pieces are benign, or, depending on who you ask, even boring. But for some people — specifically gay people who are closeted or trying to come out — they can serve as an announcement about their sexual orientation.

Our topic for today’s tech segment is how social networking sites are changing the way gay people come out — or are outed by others.

Joshua Alston joins us from Atlanta. A staff writer for Newsweek, he recently wrote a piece called “The Digital Closet.”

And Brooklyn-based artist TJ Volonis shares his story of coming out to his extended family via Facebook.