diff --git a/lib/diaspora/message_renderer.rb b/lib/diaspora/message_renderer.rb
index a9432c8fe..a876156f8 100644
--- a/lib/diaspora/message_renderer.rb
+++ b/lib/diaspora/message_renderer.rb
@@ -225,7 +225,7 @@ module Diaspora
         atx_content
       end
 
-      heading &&= heading.strip
+      heading &&= self.class.new(heading).plain_text_without_markdown
 
       if heading && opts[:length]
         heading.truncate opts[:length]
diff --git a/spec/lib/diaspora/message_renderer_spec.rb b/spec/lib/diaspora/message_renderer_spec.rb
index 1ee78b35d..9e152cdce 100644
--- a/spec/lib/diaspora/message_renderer_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/lib/diaspora/message_renderer_spec.rb
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ describe Diaspora::MessageRenderer do
     context 'when :length is passed in parameters' do
       it 'returns string of size less or equal to :length' do
         string_size = 12
-        title = message("## My title\n Post content...").title(length: string_size)
+        title = message("## This is a really, really, really long title\n Post content").title(length: string_size)
         expect(title.size).to be <= string_size
       end
     end
@@ -24,6 +24,10 @@ describe Diaspora::MessageRenderer do
         it 'returns setext style header' do
           expect(message("My title \n======\n Post content...").title).to eq "My title"
         end
+
+        it 'returns header without markdown' do
+          expect(message("## **[My title](http://diasporafoundation.org)**\n Post content...").title).to eq "My title (http://diasporafoundation.org)"
+        end
       end
 
       context 'without a Markdown header of less than 200 characters on first line ' do