I agree with you.
I'm very happy I'm socially allowed to not be on Facebook.
There are a lot of people who are essentially forced to be on Facebook due to social obligations.
Your social solution can't work for them. They need a technical solution or a different social solution.
And, no, the 'different social solution' isn't going to be "Get everyone to accept LGBTQ people."
"There are a lot of people who are essentially forced to be on Facebook due to social obligations."
All the examples in this thread of reasons you're "forced" to be on the site amount to missing parties and not seeing pictures -- and it's a really vapid argument. It might suck to not see those pictures, but there's nobody forcing you to do so. It's still entirely up to you.
To clarify, I am not victim blaming. This argument is addressing the claim that a Facebook account is a requirement of youth. It is not. Choosing privacy over pleasure might be an unattractive option for some but it's an option all the same.
You're skirting pretty close.
> You have the option to choose between privacy and social pressure.
Well, that depends on the nature of the pressure, now doesn't it? Most people can't go through life without their support network, and by 'can't' I mean can not. If being part of your network means friending them on Facebook to avoid alienating them, then that's what people have to do, isn't it?
Yes, it's annoying if your friends don't include you - but there's still no obligation. You're not being forced into anything.
Most people consider social obligations to be obligations.
Again, it depends on what quality of life you can live with, and how you're able to achieve that quality of life. Most people would be in serious emotional pain if forced to live as hermits, which is what happens to you after you alienate enough of your friends. Depending on your circumstances, Facebook (and the leaving of it) could play a large role in that.
Facebook isn't a human right or requirement. "Need" is too strong a word, you need food, water, oxygen, sleep... you "want" Facebook.
Facebook offers a service, use it or don't. It has settings, set them and if it still doesn't work for you then don't use it. Noone is "forced" to use Facebook, "forced to..." is not equivalent to "it would be really nice to...".
...and human social contact, which for certain demographics of social groupings all but requires Facebook.
Let's recommend people don't use a site which does not recognise the concept of privacy, expands the realm of the public versus the private at every opportunity, and spams their friends about their activities without their permission. People (not just LGBT people) should avoid FB entirely unless they want to be exposed to embarrassing situations like this, as FB continually tries to erode their privacy.
Using a public site like Twitter or Blogger is far healthier, as then it is clear that all content is public all the time.
You may not think of security in this context (calling it privacy) but it's all about the same fundamental thing: the control of information flow. In the privacy context it's information flow about people. Jacob's theorem shows that Facebook's privacy will worsen over time as new functionality is added.
(1) http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/conf/csfw/csfw199...
You are making a huge assumption that Facebook is as secure as it can be at its level of functionality. It is easy to see that they could add a tiny bit of functionality that barely hurts security and fix the "add any of your friends to groups" bug that their security and functionality would increase.
I agree that you can sometimes seem cool by seeming aloof to what everyone else is doing, but when it damages your social life, most people aren't going to do it.