diff --git a/app/helpers/application_helper.rb b/app/helpers/application_helper.rb
index 07eaa91ca48..5b98c20c197 100644
--- a/app/helpers/application_helper.rb
+++ b/app/helpers/application_helper.rb
@@ -25,7 +25,10 @@ module ApplicationHelper
 
   def escape_unicode(javascript)
     if javascript
-      javascript.gsub(/\342\200\250/u, '&#x2028;').gsub(/(<\/)/u, '\u003C/').html_safe
+      javascript = javascript.dup.force_encoding("utf-8")
+      javascript.gsub!(/\342\200\250/u, '&#x2028;')
+      javascript.gsub!(/(<\/)/u, '\u003C/')
+      javascript.html_safe
     else
       ''
     end