The big tech companies are finally opening up — albeit reluctantly — about just how extensively Russia used their tools to influence voters during last year’s presidential election. And, well, yikes.

Plenty had trickled out prior to the hearings already — for instance, that in addition to Russian-bought ads, Russia-linked Facebook accounts had helped organize “at least 60 rallies, protests and marches” across the U.S. “publicized or financed by eight Russia-backed Facebook accounts,” the Wall Street Journal reported. Is government regulation imminent? Is Facebook a publisher? How many bots are on Twitter exactly? What about all the mis- and disinformation on these platforms that aren’t paid ads, but can still sow discord?

“If anyone tells you they’ve got this all figured out, they’re kidding themselves — and we can’t afford to kid ourselves about what happened last year and continues to happen today,” Senator Richard Burr (Republican, North Carolina) said during his opening remarks on Wednesday at a Congressional open hearing, attended by representatives from the three platforms. “You three companies have developed platforms that have tremendous reach and therefore tremendous influence. That reach and influence is enabled by the enormous amount of data you collect on your users and their activities. Your actions need to catch up to your responsibilities.”

All three companies say they have not identified full scope of Russian interference on their platforms https://t.co/vMG7T5PSzZ

— Li Zhou (@liszhou) November 1, 2017

Facebook’s updates on US people reached by Russia’s chaos campaign:
– 0?
– 10 million
– 126 million
– 146 millionhttps://t.co/NiDInq3AYl

— Alex Kantrowitz (@Kantrowitz) November 1, 2017

…losing protection of CDA s230 – where platforms are treated like phone companies with no liability for content. https://t.co/jMbTCotP4K

— emily bell (@emilybell) November 1, 2017

We learned that some congresspeople are not 100 percent familiar with social media (“No offense, I don’t use Twitter,” “What is a bot versus a troll?” “What is an impression versus a click”).

First question at House hearing asks for definition of impression vs. ad click. That’s how little Congress knows about these platforms.

— Alex Kantrowitz (@Kantrowitz) November 1, 2017

Main takeaway from #TechHearings so far — your congressional representatives (both Dems and GOP) have no idea how social media works.

— Edmund Lee (@edmundlee) October 31, 2017

We learned a little bit about the three platforms approach to advertising and security and abuse on their platforms, though representatives for the companies were at times (and unsurprisingly) a little mealy-mouthed. (Google, it seemed to me at least, got off a little easier than the others.)

interesting. Rep: “Will you turn over DMs between the accounts?”

Twitter: “Those are private comms, so only if pursued through legal means”

— ಠ_ಠ (@MikeIsaac) November 1, 2017

Once again, Twitter’s general counsel saying they’re working every day to stop botnets.

I alerted Twitter to a botnet last week.

They didn’t even give me a comment.

Twitter search “Guo Wengui.” It’s still going.https://t.co/LtkQ6ZT9Uq

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) November 1, 2017

Wow. FB cant answer when Warner asks if accounts that it took down before the French election were also active during the US election.

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) November 1, 2017

We have thousands of engineers and advanced solutions to solve this! “Can you notify people who engaged with it?” “The the tech…difficult”

— J0nathan A1bright (@d1gi) November 1, 2017

Probably the exact opposite, would have pushed the posts beyond existing page follower base

— J0nathan A1bright (@d1gi) November 1, 2017

Facebook spent a lot of words highlighting that its goal is for “authentic” users to post authentic content. All pointed out their own renewed efforts — Twitter banning certain advertisers, Google updating quality search guidelines and including fact-check labels, Facebook ramping up its security team. Twitter made a point of mentioning it would be donating money earned from Russia Today to research efforts (though leading up to the U.S. 2016 election it apparently offered the Russian state–owned television network up to a 15 percent share of its elections-related advertising; whoops).

Want to clear up something that came up in the Senate Intel hearing this morning: pic.twitter.com/U1Dvf8VhdP

— Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) November 1, 2017

The House Intelligence Committee also released a sampling of these ads on Wednesday, along with metadata such as the amount paid for each ad (in Rubles!, several committee members fervently emphasized) and impressions and clicks for these ads. Alexis Madrigal of the Atlantic calculated the astonishingly high engagement rates:

A few corrections on this table. Mixed up some rows hastily transcribing. No change to overall picture. pic.twitter.com/MtWiONDJ8N

— Alexis C. Madrigal (@alexismadrigal) November 1, 2017

Got a fascinating DM from a digital marketer. He has seen total response rates close to what we see in the Russian data. Shared w/permission pic.twitter.com/tWRX5GAEfS

— Alexis C. Madrigal (@alexismadrigal) November 1, 2017

Then shortly after the hearings Facebook proceeded with its third quarter earnings call, during which it announced $10 billion in quarterly revenue and told analysts it’s planning to spend heavily on security. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

thefacebook launched Feb 2004. you wouldn’t believe what happened next. duopoly eclipses 70% of ad market…while ignoring Russia hearings. pic.twitter.com/JDS21X6qjc

— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) November 2, 2017

love to hear Sandberg promote the increasing relevance of our ads being delivered contrasted with a day of Russian ads hearings

— ಠ_ಠ (@MikeIsaac) November 1, 2017