The three firms faced hard questions at a Senate panel on Tuesday on crime and terrorism about why they missed political ads bought with Russian money, BBC reported on Wednesday.
Lawmakers are eyeing new regulations for social media firms in the wake of Russia's alleged meddling in 2016. The firms said they would tighten advertising policies and guidelines.
Senator Al Franken, a Democrat from Minnesota, asked Facebook -- which absorbed much of the heat from lawmakers -- why payment in Russian rubles did not tip off the firm to suspicious activity.
"In hindsight, we should have had a broader lens," said Colin Stretch, general counsel for Facebook. "There are signals we missed."
A day earlier, Facebook said as many as 126 million US users may have seen Russia-backed content over the last two years.
Lawyers for the three firms are facing two days of congressional hearings as lawmakers consider legislation that would extend regulations for television, radio and satellite to also cover social media platforms.
The firms said they are increasing efforts to identify bots and spam, as well as make political advertising more transparent.
Facebook, for example, said it expects to have 20,000 people working on "safety and security" by the end of 2018 -- double the current number.
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