How Facebook works Out Who Your Top Nine Friends Are (So You See Them Everywhere)

You would have found yourself wondering why the heck you keeping seeing that person on your timeline. You met them, like, once??

Why do people who you haven't seen in years and whose timelines you never visit show up in your top 9 friends bar?

The people at Vice did a bit of research to find out exactly why this is happening. 

It all makes sense if you consider the fact that the more you interact with people (especially new people), the better it is for Facebook because it gives them more potential advert revenue.

Facebook told Motherboard that the slightly odd people who might turn up at the top of your friends list is all to do with the social network hoping you will interact with this person – maybe because you have similar interests or have been to many of the same events.

‘These are the people the algorithm is subtly encouraging you to interact with,’ they wrote.

It can also show you friends whose profiles you haven’t looked at in a long time in order to reignite a connection, or people you have recently added to foster a good Facebook relationship – who doesn’t want that?

But of course there isn't always a method. Facebook also admitted that sometimes it's simply random.