How does facebook choose the friends it displays

Profile views. Tagged photos. Wall posts. Has this person posted on your wall recently, or you on theirs? Have they liked your content or have you likes theirs? Photos viewed. Currently online. Friends who are currently online or have recently been online. This typically applies for random people that might show up. After playing around with this, I'm pretty sure the people that appear in your top 6 friends in timeline are all people who have recently stalked or have visited your page.

They can't see themselves in your list when they visit your page. But you can! And they can see to! So don't think your stalking attempts are going unnoticed.

They know you visit their profile just as much as you know who visits yours. Mar 23rd, at AM Reply. Based upon checking my profile just now, my friendslist to the right is showing eight friends now.

So the top friends turn out to be the smaller box of six friends. What if certain friends show up in both boxes? What does anyone notice about this? I do notice from multiple times per day, friends show in variations. So in the morning time, on the list to the right, I can see certain friends, but then in the evening, some of those friends are off the list of friends shown to the right.

For me, I log on and notice how some certain friend show up repeatedly in the list to the right, versus someone just showing up, and never showing up again.

I have reference stories as far as someone showing up in both lists. My sister has this so-called friend, who sent out friend requests to everyone in my family, and of her friends. I don't talk to her, nor have a I any need to look at her. I just friended her for the hell of it. Another story is, someone I like is showing up in both lists as well.

I can point out, I did recently contact him recently. The contact seems to be one sided with me talking first, but when I put the initial of the person's name in the search bar, this person is first with a certain letter, that shows his username, and the last name.

I make note that, the many searchbar results have change around drastically, but this person remains in the same spots with the initials. Since someone has the same initial as the first name, that person I like is second. The oddness is, I make sure not to publicly interact with this person on facebook. The contact has only been private messaging. One pointer is, when I first got timeline, this person was already in the smaller box of friends as some other obvious friends.

In relation to the poster before me and above, this fits what you pointed out. Mar 24th, at AM Reply. The crazy thing is that sometimes I notice certain person's photo is shown both the first on the small box and the big box.

Don't know what does it mean. Go to "Find Friend" and then you see 3 names under Mutual Friend on the left. Refresh the page and you see some names show up again and again. I get a feeling that those are your biggest stalkers. I've completely stopped looking at her profile and have been interacting with people trying to get them to show up instead of her, but nothing works.

The other 5 friends constantly switch around and change, but she always stays there in the sixth spot no matter what. Anyone know how to fix this? Apr 6th, at AM Reply. Because this is the same thing I do to my "new" friends i believe that when someone shows up in both boxes on timeline.. Does she check up on me? Apr 8th, at AM Reply.

Has anyone else had this happen? It's a little unnerving that they don't change at all, even in placement, while the other 6 seem to shift around and vary amongst a small group maybe 20 or so.

It's at least scared me out of stalking for a few weeks, and I know now that they won't see my profile like that thanks to one of the above answers mentioning the 'view as' feature , but did I somehow manage to break the algorithm through excessive stalking? Apr 12th, at AM Reply Your bottom left is either the person you've been lookin at the most or theyve been lookin at your profile.

I hate it. I feel like I'm being stalked. Apr 12th, at AM Reply. This 10 people is either your highly interacted or most photo tagged or family or your top most stalkers. For me 4 of them is family, 3 of them is just photo tag, 1 of them is good interaction and 2 of them is my top stalkers i believe. Apr 12th, at PM Reply The search observation is interesting I was forced into timeline last month, and for me, the bottom left and right are people who's page views I've looked at very often bottom left being my crush, bottom right being someone I used to like--but just check out of boredom.

In the recent past, I have maybe liked a status update or something.. But hardly any interaction previous to that. However, I've not looked at their profile nearly as much, maybe times a day or none at all. The bottom right one though, actually changes every day with another girl internet friend of mine..

And its always between the two and no one else!! Bottom left hasn't changed since i noticed it 3 weeks ago. I actually took a survey recently on a game message board site, and it looks like a bunch of people with their friends on their bottom left and right varied from people they knew to people they barely talked to.

So I'm guessing their fb friends talking their profile might come to play after all! Apr 14th, at AM Reply. Facebook throws in up to 5 randoms it seems so that you don't get suspicious. If you ask Facebook personally they claim it is the people you have contacted publicly the most in the past 6 weeks. I know for a fact this cannot be true, as most the people who turn up in my friends box are people I have never spoken to on Facebook, let alone in the past 6 weeks. Apr 14th, at PM Reply.

But then since last thursday, when you look to your owns profiles, you see it as facetime even if you haven't changed yet. And from that thurday to sunday night yesterday my crush was the right bottom one. But then I wen at my friend's house and tell him about the 2 bottom one than never change, And at first he though I was ''finally'' with facetime so he goes on my page with is cell phone to notice I still wasn't.

Then, when I go home that that, he replaced her in the bottom left square after many days of being my crush! And I haven't chek his profile that day So I though he went there because he did check on mine. Second story! Today, of course it was still my friend who remplaced her who was still there, Then I talk a bit to my crush over textos today and saw her online a bit afterward..

I don't speak with her on facebook and don't check at her profile either at least this time and guess what, after her two short logg in logg out, She pop back as the bottom left! If others notices stuff or have experiances to share, I'd be happy to read those! I've tried a lot of the suggestions above and am interested in one person that keeps popping up on my new timeline. He's always in the bottom left box of the 8 person list and never moves, frequently in the six friends box, and under 'mutual friends' under the 'find friends' section, he's there many times after refreshing the page too.

We haven't spoken on FB for a few months, but I do look at his page every few days. Can anyone tell me whether he's appearing because I'm looking at him, or is it because he's also looking at me? Apr 17th, at PM Reply. It may have something to do with my views of their pages but I don't visit all those people's pages every day. Some of them are everyday, some of them once in awhile, but some I haven't looked at in over a month.

More recently, my crush and some professional race car driver have been showing up quite often in that 6 person box So, obviously the thing is not very consistent with my profile views or interactions of other people I'm sure some whose profiles I look at more are never a part of that box , and it could very well mean that those who do get in that box are the ones that are looking at my page the most.

Which I honestly hope to be true, especially for the 2 guys I talked about that have never showed up on that box until recently. I Can know who your friends look at most, but only out of mutual friends But you can't see where you lie pretty cool though : Apr 18th, at AM Reply. Or if its random. Apr 18th, at AM Reply. Apr 18th, at PM Reply. I used to have communication on FB with a person whose significant other got..

So, I pretty much blocked her and anyone else who I thought might be party to it.. Too many games. I recently also just added him under the Privacy options , excluding him from being able to see anything - because it's just all to juvenile. However, even after that, and I don't visit his profile page at all, haven't for months - he still shows up in those 6 pictures on the timeline, a couple of times a day.. I doubt very much that he is viewing my Profile often at all - except out of the occasional idle curiosity..

He still has the option to message me if he.. I don't break my word. I just think that View As might make FB think someone is a top friend? These theories all seem to be mostly right but I see people going off track because of a couple of oversights. When you look at someone's friends list, it is a snapshot of the last time that THEY were logged on as well as who they interacted with in one form or another when THEY were on.

Refresh as many times as you like and it will stay pretty much the same until they log in again. Now here is the unnoticed trick to that It's also dependent on how often they get on. The more active a group is on FB If there's someone on your list that you never interact with Odds are it's not very much. They haven't been on enough or interacted enough with other people to change their own order up so if YOU were their big interaction at one time This insinuates regular interaction because one person may be too busy to get on FB for a few days Right back on top.

If you pay attention Take note of the population of the list at different times during the day and you will be able to tell their regular log on times. You can also tell how recently by refreshing YOUR homepage basically clearing the online cache then going to their page and whoever comes out on top And YES If they are You can also make note of the times that each other post as well.

Gives an indication of times of interaction as well. You may find it disturbing how often they are on at the same time. People give up so much information on FB and have no idea that it's right there in front of them for everyone to see.

Apr 19th, at AM Reply That's an interesting observation, one which holds some merit. I read most comments here and did some experiments. I was more interested in finding out why did the same person always showed up in the bottom left of the 8 friend box, because everytime I log in I check his profile a lot.

I don't know why.. I guess I just made a habit of it Anyway, I was I bit concerned about that stalker thing and I tried to figure it out. When I see his timeline I never show up in the friend box. In fact, I never saw my picture in any of the pages of the people I often talk to and comment or post in their profiles, and when I see my profile as them, the group of 8 friends appears different to every friend of yours.

I tried to "View my timeline As" him and he only sees random friends in my box. Most are non-mutual, and I never visit their profiles more than once when I added them as friends and the only interaction I have with them is probably just a happy birthday message.

And if I change my friends settings in "Who can see your full friend list on your timeline? So I believe what shows up in your friends box when you see it through your account are the friends you have more interaction with and the bottom left is the person you visit more often. I think there's no way to find out if someone is visiting your profile.

Apr 22nd, at AM Reply. I opened a bogus account and visited myself as an experiment and saw my bogus account appearing on the top 6 again and again! Apr 22nd, at PM Reply. Well done facebook, I love it, I wouldn't bother with it all if I didn't know some nice girl was looking at my profile, it make me come back as I'm sure it does millions of others, who really cares if someone is stalking you or is looking at your profile, I really couldn't careless, but then again I am a bloke.

Apr 25th, at PM Reply. Apr 26th, at PM Reply. I asked a friend who has been stuck on my bottom right corner on my 8 friends list to click on my profile to test how often she would show up in the top center 6 person box, but I didn't see any increase in consecutive appearances while refreshing 20 times.. It seemed like normal.

Perhaps it takes several page views.. Who knows. I don't view her profile very often. Maybe once or a few times every couple of days.. We mostly message each other. My crush on the other hand.. Shows up often occasionally. Just do a quick Google search and you'll see it's a popular topic. Some folks are worried that the top nine ranking means their significant other is cheating because a hottie is on that list.

Others are frustrated that someone they dislike is creeping their page, while some people are panicking about their stalking showing up on their crush's page. During the past few weeks I've been seeing that girl persistently on my boyfriend's 9-box.

They never interact publicly, but she used to have a thing for him, so I'm scared. According to Motherboard Facebook determines those nine friends based on 12 factors - your interactions with those individuals on Facebook, profile views, tagged photos, wall posts, likes, comments, viewed photos, private messages, mutual interactions, friends who are currently online, friends you've added to the "close friends" group and group chats.

So it doesn't necessarily mean those people are stalking you and that's why they are being added to your top nine friends.