Your Quick Answer:
The ranking of the friends on the story viewers’ list on Facebook depends upon your activities and interactions with them.
The ones who react to your stories are the ones who are placed at the top of the list.
Even, there are some friends with whom you chat on Facebook. They’re more interactive compared to others so their names are placed above the less interactive ones.
If you’ve some close friends who like or react to all your posts, and comments and share them too, they’re considered close friends. They are ranked higher than the ones who react to your posts rarely.
The ones who view all your stories have a greater frequency of viewing stories which is why they are placed above the ones who are newly added or have less interaction with you on Facebook.
If there is a change in interaction with your friends or if you add some new friends who react and interact with you more, then there will be a change in the story viewers’ list.
Even, if you remove a close friend, the person will no longer appear at the top of your story viewer list.
There are some steps you can follow to see other viewers on Facebook story.
Why Is Same Person Always At Top Of My Facebook Story Views:
The story viewers’ lists are arranged according to certain activities and interactions. They become chronological over time but there’s no actual algorithm followed by Facebook to rank the story viewers. It differs and changes according to your activities and interactions with your friends.
If someone has been appearing at the bottom of the story viewers’ list, it certainly means that the user doesn’t have much interaction with you on the DMs.
You’ll always find the regular story viewers or the reactors at the top of the story viewers’ list.
The one who has a high-frequency score of viewing stories or chats with you in the DM all the time gets a higher position in the list than others.
How Does Facebook Rank Story Viewers:
There are the following facts that work as reasons:
1. Reactions to Story

Facebook ranks the story viewers based on certain activities and interactions. Whenever you’re opening the list of viewers to see who has viewed your story, you’ll always find there the names of the ones who have reacted to your story are placed at the top of the list. The viewers’ list is never arranged by the time of viewing the story or alphabetically.
Facebook allows users to react to the story that he or she views. The reactions are sent to the profile owner and are visible on the viewers’ list. But all the viewers do not react to stories or replies. Only a few friends send reactions to stories. Their names appear before others on the list. Therefore, at the top of the viewers’ list, you’ll always find the names of the viewers who have either replied or reacted to your story.
2. Interaction

As the viewers’ lists are arranged according to your interactions with your friends, the ones with whom you interact the most are placed at the top of the list.
There are some friends on Facebook with whom you chat or interact more than others. Most users don’t interact with all their Facebook friends daily but only with a handful of them.
These friends’ names are automatically placed at the top of the list and below their names, you’ll find the names of the ones with whom you interact less or do not chat at all. With the change in your pattern of interaction, the list will change too.
3. Close Ones
On Facebook, even if you have a long list of friends, there are some friends with whom interaction and engagement are more. You’ll always find a handful or selective friends who react to all your posts, leave comments on all the posts you upload or share, tag you on their posts and even share your posts. On Facebook, they are seen as your close friends which is why their name gets listed at the top of the viewers’ list.
The ones who react or likely your posts rarely, or never leave a comment are the less interactive friends whose name automatically gets placed after the names of their close friends. On Facebook, there are some people whom you barely know as a person, but at the same time, you have your relatives and real friends on the friend list too.
The users whom you barely know automatically interact with you less than your real-life friends which is how Facebook can identify the close friends of your profile.
4. Frequency of Viewing Story
The list of viewers always has some common names, which means that some friends view almost all of your story. The ranking of the friends in the viewers’ list also depends upon the frequency of viewing the story.
Some of your friends, i.e mainly your close friends view all your stories so the frequency of viewing the story is high for them which is why their names are placed before the other viewers.
The name of those friends, who rarely view your story is placed below because they have a low frequency of viewing the story.
If you view someone’s story more often, your name will automatically come above others.
5. Most Recently Added Friends

The names of the ones whom you’ve most recently added to your friend list will be placed at the bottom of the story viewers’ list. The ones whom you’ve added recently to your friend list have the least interaction with you so their names go to the bottom of the list if the user doesn’t react to your story. But if a newly added user starts to react to all of your stories, his name would appear at the top of the viewers’ list because of his reactions to the stories.
The story viewers’ list often gets changed when there is a change in the pattern of interaction or when you remove the close friends or replace them with closer ones.
Why Do Facebook Story Viewers Change Order in List:
Just look at these things:
1. Change in Behavior:
If you can no longer see the name of the same friends at the top of the story viewers’ list it can be due to a change in interaction or behavior. If the user has slowed down the interaction with you on Facebook, then he or she no longer remains the most interactive one. Slowing down interaction may be different for different cases. It may be slowing down of conversation between you and the user. If you no longer chat with the user often, Facebook will notice the slowing down of interaction between you two and the user will no longer be one of your close friends.
Even, if the user becomes less active on Facebook, stops reacting or commenting on your posts, etc it may also be seen as a change in behavior which is when the user’s name will be shifted to a lower position in the story viewers list.
2. New Friends replace the Place:

The story viewers list can change based on your activities. If you’ve added some friends to your account recently who are more active, then the old ones will automatically get replaced by the new ones.
Mostly, the newly added friends have less interaction but it is not true for all cases because if the newly added friends are overactive on Facebook, then they can easily become the person whom you interact with you the most. Furthermore, if a newly added friend starts to view and react to all the stories that you upload, then automatically the person’s name will go to the top of the story viewers’ list, bringing down the older ones.
3. Removing from Friends:

When you remove a friend from your Facebook profile, it changes the algorithm that Facebook follows with your account. When you’re removing a close friend who used to appear at the top of the story viewers’ list, then the user’s name would no longer remain at the same position nor the user would be able to view the privately posted story.
You won’t be able to see the user at the top of the story viewers’ list because you’ve just removed the user which has set a new algorithm. His name would be replaced and someone else with the most interaction with you will come to the top of the list.
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