End Times

Man Who Created The Facebook ‘Like’ Button Now Warns Your Mind Can Be ‘Hijacked’ Through Social Media

Justin Rosenstein was one of a small group of Facebook employees who decided to create the least resistance, a very addictive single click ‘like’ button.

Published

8 years ago

October 6, 2017

Geoffrey Grider

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Justin Rosenstein had tweaked his laptop’s operating system to block Reddit, banned himself from Snapchat, which he compares to heroin, and imposed limits on his use of Facebook. But even that wasn’t enough.

“And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.” Revelation 13:15 (KJV)

EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s very interesting to understand that the very people who created the highly-addictive ‘like’ system have now installed extensions on their devices to block those same features from being active. What does that tell you about how enslaving social media can be? Just imagine how it will be in a few years when AI is fully rolled out, and the devices are doing our thinking for us. The “brave new world’ is a very scary place to be, and I honestly don’t think any of us really know what we’re playing with.

In August, the 34-year-old tech executive took a more radical step to restrict his use of social media and other addictive technologies. Rosenstein purchased a new iPhone and instructed his assistant to set up a parental-control feature to prevent him from downloading any apps.

He was particularly aware of the allure of Facebook “likes”, which he describes as “bright dings of pseudo-pleasure” that can be as hollow as they are seductive. And Rosenstein should know: he was the Facebook engineer who created the “like” button in the first place.

A decade after he stayed up all night coding a prototype of what was then called an “awesome” button, Rosenstein belongs to a small but growing band of Silicon Valley heretics who complain about the rise of the so-called “attention economy”: an internet shaped around the demands of an advertising economy.

These refuseniks are rarely founders or chief executives, who have little incentive to deviate from the mantra that their companies are making the world a better place. Instead, they tend to have worked a rung or two down the corporate ladder: designers, engineers and product managers who, like Rosenstein, several years ago put in place the building blocks of a digital world from which they are now trying to disentangle themselves. “It is very common,” Rosenstein says, “for humans to develop things with the best of intentions and for them to have unintended, negative consequences.”

Rosenstein, who also helped create Gchat during a stint at Google, and now leads a San Francisco-based company that improves office productivity, appears most concerned about the psychological effects on people who, research shows, touch, swipe or tap their phone 2,617 times a day.

There is growing concern that as well as addicting users, technology is contributing toward so-called “continuous partial attention”, severely limiting people’s ability to focus, and possibly lowering IQ. One recent study showed that the mere presence of smartphones damages cognitive capacity – even when the device is turned off. “Everyone is distracted,” Rosenstein says. “All of the time.”

But those concerns are trivial compared with the devastating impact upon the political system that some of Rosenstein’s peers believe can be attributed to the rise of social media and the attention-based market that drives it.

Drawing a straight line between addiction to social media and political earthquakes like Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump, they contend that digital forces have completely upended the political system and, left unchecked, could even render democracy as we know it obsolete.

In 2007, Rosenstein was one of a small group of Facebook employees who decided to create a path of least resistance – a single click – to “send little bits of positivity” across the platform. Facebook’s “like” feature was, Rosenstein says, “wildly” successful: engagement soared as people enjoyed the short-term boost they got from giving or receiving social affirmation, while Facebook harvested valuable data about the preferences of users that could be sold to advertisers. The idea was soon copied by Twitter, with its heart-shaped “likes” (previously star-shaped “favourites”), Instagram, and countless other apps and websites.

It was Rosenstein’s colleague, Leah Pearlman, then a product manager at Facebook and on the team that created the Facebook “like”, who announced the feature in a 2009 blogpost. Now 35 and an illustrator, Pearlman confirmed via email that she, too, has grown disaffected with Facebook “likes” and other addictive feedback loops. She has installed a web browser plug-in to eradicate her Facebook news feed, and hired a social media manager to monitor her Facebook page so that she doesn’t have to.

“One reason I think it is particularly important for us to talk about this now is that we may be the last generation that can remember life before,” Rosenstein says. It may or may not be relevant that Rosenstein, Pearlman and most of the tech insiders questioning today’s attention economy are in their 30s, members of the last generation that can remember a world in which telephones were plugged into walls.

It is revealing that many of these younger technologists are weaning themselves off their own products, sending their children to elite Silicon Valley schools where iPhones, iPads and even laptops are banned. They appear to be abiding by a Biggie Smalls lyric from their own youth about the perils of dealing crack cocaine: never get high on your own supply.

One morning in April this year, designers, programmers and tech entrepreneurs from across the world gathered at a conference centre on the shore of the San Francisco Bay. They had each paid up to $1,700 to learn how to manipulate people into habitual use of their products, on a course curated by conference organiser Nir Eyal.

Eyal, 39, the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, has spent several years consulting for the tech industry, teaching techniques he developed by closely studying how the Silicon Valley giants operate.

“The technologies we use have turned into compulsions, if not full-fledged addictions,” Eyal writes. “It’s the impulse to check a message notification. It’s the pull to visit YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter for just a few minutes, only to find yourself still tapping and scrolling an hour later.” None of this is an accident, he writes. It is all “just as their designers intended”.

He explains the subtle psychological tricks that can be used to make people develop habits, such as varying the rewards people receive to create “a craving”, or exploiting negative emotions that can act as “triggers”. “Feelings of boredom, loneliness, frustration, confusion and indecisiveness often instigate a slight pain or irritation and prompt an almost instantaneous and often mindless action to quell the negative sensation,” Eyal writes.

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Less than 5 minutes after posting this story on social media, Facebook banned me for 6 days in retaliation for daring to expose them.

Attendees of the 2017 Habit Summit might have been surprised when Eyal walked on stage to announce that this year’s keynote speech was about “something a little different”. He wanted to address the growing concern that technological manipulation was somehow harmful or immoral. He told his audience that they should be careful not to abuse persuasive design, and wary of crossing a line into coercion.

But he was defensive of the techniques he teaches, and dismissive of those who compare tech addiction to drugs. “We’re not freebasing Facebook and injecting Instagram here,” he said. He flashed up a slide of a shelf filled with sugary baked goods. “Just as we shouldn’t blame the baker for making such delicious treats, we can’t blame tech makers for making their products so good we want to use them,” he said. “Of course that’s what tech companies will do. And frankly: do we want it any other way?”

Without irony, Eyal finished his talk with some personal tips for resisting the lure of technology. He told his audience he uses a Chrome extension, called DF YouTube, “which scrubs out a lot of those external triggers” he writes about in his book, and recommended an app called Pocket Points that “rewards you for staying off your phone when you need to focus”.

Finally, Eyal confided the lengths he goes to protect his own family. He has installed in his house an outlet timer connected to a router that cuts off access to the internet at a set time every day. “The idea is to remember that we are not powerless,” he said. “We are in control.”

But are we? If the people who built these technologies are taking such radical steps to wean themselves free, can the rest of us reasonably be expected to exercise our free will?

Not according to Tristan Harris, a 33-year-old former Google employee turned vocal critic of the tech industry. “All of us are jacked into this system,” he says. “All of our minds can be hijacked. Our choices are not as free as we think they are.” source

End Times

As We Watch America Being Ripped To Pieces By Our Leaders Who Have Betrayed Her, Be Reminded And Comforted That This World Is Not Our Home

Published

3 days ago

February 24, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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America is clearly in her last days, are you looking for that better country and Jesus Christ or will you go down with the ship?

When Barack Obama was president, I wrote over 350 articles and stories on the incredible damage he was inflicting on our nation. When he had his third term through the Trojan horse we call Joe Biden, I wrote nearly 100 articles calling out the atrocities that the Democrats were perpetuating. Here at the start of the second year of Trump 2.0, I have been chronicling for some time the dark spiritual climate that has settled over us with the witches and warlocks of the Christian Nationalism Movement, Turning Point USA and all the spiritually-deranged MAGA and QAnon denizens of the current administration. What has all this taught me? That’s what I’d like to share with you today.

“But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.” Hebrews 11:16 (KJB)

Here are three simple and unique truths that you would do well to acquaint yourself with. In fact, these truths are so self-evident that the entire world system is dedicated to keeping you from seeing and understanding them. What the Bible says will come to pass must come to pass.

1). The world is preparing itself to receive Antichrist

“Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.” 1 John 2:18 (KJB)

Over the past 17 years of reporting through Now The End Begins, the trend is undeniable and unmistakable, the kingdoms of this world are working diligently to prepare the coming 7-year kingdom for Antichrist. Like it or not, America is at the forefront of that movement. When Obama and Biden were running things, we got to see all the spiritual wickedness they brought in with the LGBTQ agenda and the glorification of what God hates. For the past year, we’ve watched as counterfeit Christianity in the form of Christian Nationalism has been working to bring in the 7 Mountains Mandate of end times idolatry based on greed, personal gain and self-glorification. 7MM has a different Jesus and preaches a different gospel. On one hand, Barack Obama and Donald Trump would be seem to be quite different, but they’re not. Both men are working to accomplish the same goal, just from opposite sides of the fence.

THIS IS WHERE NOW THE END BEGINS STARTED, AND 17 YEARS LATER, WE HAVE ONLY SUNK DEEPER INTO IT

2). America is being ravaged and sold to the highest bidder

“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.” Isaiah 40:15 (KJB)

As of this writing, America is over $37,000,000,000,000.00 in debt, a number that cannot and will not be paid back in anyone’s lifetime. But as this titanic debt continues to compile, politicians on both sides of the aisle have become fabulously wealthy. President Trump and his whole family have profited more than $4,000,000,000.00 since returning to office. America is being eaten alive from the inside out, and no one is coming to her rescue. No one. 2026 is the 250th anniversary of our founding, and it just may be the year it all falls apart. President Trump will be very happy to sell you his latest merch pitch, a watch he calls The Golden Tourbillion for a mere $100,000.00. Everything is for sale with Trump, including his soul.

3). Jesus Christ is the only safe place

“And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.” 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10 (KJB)

Today is Day 2,171 of 15 Days To Flatten The Curve, a timeline that began when Donald Trump put the entire world on lockdown back on March 16th of 2020. Starting from that day forward, we believe the beginning of sorrows started, and we have continued the timeline because the events just keep coming. The time has passed, Christian, for debates on how to “save America”, that ship has long since sailed. But now is the perfect time for you to rededicate your life to the service of Jesus Christ as a gospel witness in these last days. We are not living in a Golden Age, and there is no Golden Age coming, that’s deception. But you can start right now laying up for yourself treasure in Heaven as the Lord tells us to. America must fall as the Bible says all nations will in the last days, but there is a ‘better country’ waiting for you to come and take up residence in. Get on the Ark, Christian, the rain is about to begin.

Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page

When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. We have a Gospel Billboard program. We are now broadcasting Bible studies, Podcasts and a Sunday Service 5 times a week, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.

But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. The Lord has given us an open door with a tremendous ‘course’ for us to fulfill that will create an excellent experience at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Please pray for our efforts, and if the Lord leads you to donate, be as generous as possible. The war is REAL, the battle HOT and the time is SHORT…TO THE FIGHT!!!

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

End Times

The Opening Ceremony Of The 2026 Winter Olympics Featured A Burning Cauldron With Everlasting Flames In The Middle Of The All-Seeing Eye In Hell

Published

3 weeks ago

February 7, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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The opening ceremony for the 2026 Winter Olympics was ripped right from the pages of end times events laid out in the book of Revelation

The world just can’t help themselves, can they? At the opening ceremony to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy last night, what was intended to be a beautifully designed version of the ‘Olympic Cauldron’ representing the ‘eternal flame’ for the duration of the games was actually a hellish depiction of the all-seeing eye of Horus coming out from the eternal fires of Hell. Ever see ‘Stranger Things’? They created the Olympic Cauldron as the Demogorgon come to life for our entertainment.

“The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:” Revelation 14:10 (KJB)

A massive triumphal arch, a blazing, suspended centerpiece. The entire scene drenched in blood-red light with fire raining down from the heavens like a victory celebration for something ancient, pagan, and proud. Whether the designers intended “the all-seeing eye” or not, the effect is the same: a global spectacle built on awe, fear, and worshipful attention—centered on fire. The very same Hell fire now being mocked and denounced by people like Kirk Cameron. Christian, wake up!

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The modern world doesn’t merely tolerate darkness—it packages it. Stylizes it. Sells it as culture. Then tells you you’re “negative” or “conspiratorial” if you notice the tone. But Bible believers aren’t called to applaud the production. We’re called to reprove it. Reprove things like the wicked NFL Super Bowl and their Sodomite Half Time Show, and yes, the Turning Point All-American Halftime show promoted openly by Laodicean preacher Franklin Graham. It is nothing but wickedness everywhere you look, and that’s exactly as your King James Bible says it will be. Fill your pockets with gospel tracts and go out into the ‘highways and hedges’ and tell them about Jesus. Time is almost gone, make the most of it for the Lord, and get ready for the Judgment Seat of Christ. Amen? TO THE FIGHT!!!

Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

End Times

FUN FACT: It Is Alcohol That Is The Number #1 Cause Of Preventable Deaths Here In America Not Illegal Drugs Coming Over On Boats From Narcoterrorists

Published

3 months ago

December 4, 2025

Geoffrey Grider

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It is alcohol consumption and not illegal drug use that is the number #1 cause of preventable death that’s killing a massive number of Americans yearly

For decades we were told that the greatest threat to American life and liberty came from illegal drugs—cocaine, meth, fentanyl, heroin. And to be sure, those substances have destroyed countless lives. But as new national research continues to roll in, a shocking truth has emerged: the legal, government-sanctioned “social drink” is killing far more people than the substances our leaders claim to be waging war against. A message to President Trump – if you really want to stop the killing from drug use, ban the drug we call alcohol. Alcohol kills far more people than illegal drugs do.

“Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” Proverbs 23:29-32 (KJB)

In this present Laodicean age, where pleasure is the new morality and self-indulgence is the national pastime, alcohol is quietly claiming lives at a rate that far surpasses illicit drug use. The world shrugs. The media yawns. And Christians—many of them—have learned to justify the very thing that is destroying their own households. So as far as I’m concerned, this whole national dialogue about Narcoterrorists killing Americans with illegal drugs doesn’t hold a candle to the millions of kids who are taught to become alcoholics at MLB and NFL stadiums.

A Legal Substance With Illegal-Level Destruction

Recent mortality data reveals that alcohol-related deaths have skyrocketed, overtaking illicit drugs as a major cause of preventable death in the United States. The numbers include liver disease, alcohol-induced organ failure, drunk-driving fatalities, alcohol-fueled violence, and deaths tied to long-term addiction. Yet unlike illegal drugs, alcohol enjoys full cultural acceptance, full government protection, and full corporate marketing power behind it. There is no stigma. No shame. No national warning campaign. Alcohol is celebrated in commercials, sports events, holidays, weddings, even in some so-called “church fellowships.” No Christian should ever drink it, and no preacher should ever stay silent about it.

Because the Bible is not silent. “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise” (Proverbs 20:1). In God’s preserved Book, alcohol is never neutral, never harmless, and never “safe in moderation.” Its end is always destruction. America used to know that when preachers like DL Moody and Billy Sunday stood in the pulpit.

NO ONE PREACHED HARDER AGAINST THE DANGERS OF ALCOHOL THAN BILLY SUNDAY, CLICK TO ORDER THIS AMAZING BOOK!!

Big Alcohol: A Multibillion-Dollar Industry Built on Broken Homes

If Big Pharma profits from addiction, Big Alcohol might be even worse. Billions of dollars flow through an industry whose survival depends on one thing: repeat customers. The light drinker is not their business. Their real money comes from people they’ve addicted who can’t stop.

And what do we get in return?

Tens of thousands of deaths every year
Millions of broken marriages
Abuse, violence, poverty, and imprisonment
Children raised in instability
Generational trauma that repeats itself like a curse

This is not an accident. This is the fruit of a system that has normalized what God has condemned. But we were warned: “At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” (Proverbs 23:32)

Why Christians Are Losing the Battle Before It Even Starts

The saddest part is not what the world is doing with alcohol—it’s what the Church is doing. In this lukewarm Church Age, professing Christians defend alcohol more strongly than they defend the Bible! They insist that “Jesus made wine,” ignoring the scriptural distinctions between fermented and unfermented wine. They argue that drinking is fine “as long as I don’t get drunk,” as if voluntarily consuming a mind-altering substance is some kind of Christian liberty badge. It isn’t.

This is not liberty. It is bondage masquerading as freedom.

The apostle Paul writes, “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). Notice the contrast: one spirit empties you of discernment; the Holy Spirit fills you with it. Alcohol reduces, diminishes, and destroys. The Spirit edifies, strengthens, and sanctifies. But you don’t know that because your pastor doesn’t preach that.

America isn’t merely drunk on alcohol. She is drunk on self-justification, convinced she can handle what is handling her.

When Noah emerged from the ark into a brand-new world, the very first recorded sin was drunkenness and alcohol-induced shame (Genesis 9:20-24). When God describes the fall of Babylon in Revelation 17–18, the imagery again involves intoxication—nations made drunk with spiritual fornication. Alcohol is not just a social issue; it is a spiritual picture of a people dulled, numbed, and desensitized right before judgment falls. America is not dying because of what is illegal, but because of what is celebrated. “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.“1 Peter4:7 (KJB)