As earlier mentioned, Facebook was placing restrictions on it’s Poll feature. They now seem to have removed the restriction.

Matt Hick from Facebook’s Corporate Communications had this to say:

“We made a mistake, and we’ve fixed it. Facebook did not intend to block the names of competitors from the new Polls product. Now researchers can ask questions with any company’s name. I’d encourage you to give it another try.”

When pointed out that is was obvious that they were blocking the competition he replied:

“Some outdated code was used that should not have been. When we learned it was blocking those words, we fixed it. We regret the mistake.”

So there you go folks, it seems like a genuine mistake or not? I am still not convinced by the given explanation as it seems like PR talk to me but what the hell they have rectified it, end of chapter!