This week’s hearings on Capitol Hill with Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg were far less contentious than they might have been. More importantly, lawmakers were far better prepared than they had been when questioning Mark Zuckerberg earlier this summer. That meant that despite Alex Jones showing up to create a scene in the hallway, the hearings were relatively boring and quite productive, raising a number of important, issues including free speech on platforms outside the U.S., rules governing aspects of platforms like Twitter’s verification, and technology like deepfakes and encryption.

A surprise announcement from DOJ, however, could undermine that progress.