Facebook on Wednesday banned ads on its flagship website and Instagram that claim widespread voting fraud, suggest US election results would be invalid, or which attack any method of voting.
The company announced the new rules in a blog post, adding to earlier restrictions on premature claims of election victory.
The move came a day after US President Donald Trump used the first televised debate with Democratic challenger Joe Biden to amplify his baseless claims that the November 3 presidential election will be "rigged".
Trump has been especially critical of mail-in ballots, and he cited a number of small unrelated incidents to argue that fraud was already happening at scale.
Facebook has been under fire for refusing to fact-check political ads more broadly and for rampant organic misinformation.
Citing hate speech rules, it also moved Wednesday to remove Trump campaign ads suggesting that immigrants could be a significant source of coronavirus infections.
Facebook said the new election ad prohibition would include those that "portray voting or census participation as useless/meaningless" or that "delegitimize any lawful method or process of voting or voting tabulation... as illegal, inherently fraudulent or corrupt".
The US military said on Monday it destroyed six Iranian small boats and intercepted Iranian cruise missiles and drones as Tehran sought to thwart a new US naval effort to open shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Two cases of the deadly hantavirus have been confirmed, and five more are suspected among people who were on a luxury cruise ship now held in the Atlantic near Cape Verde, the World Health Organisation said in its most detailed update on the outbreak.
President Vladimir Putin has declared on Monday a two-day ceasefire in the conflict with Ukraine on May 8-9 to mark Russia’s World War Two victory, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy countered with his own proposed pause in fighting starting earlier, on the night of May 5‑6.
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A small airplane with five occupants crashed into a building on Monday in the city of Belo Horizonte in southeastern Brazil, killing three people, local officials and firefighters said.