diff --git a/lib/diaspora/markdownify.rb b/lib/diaspora/markdownify.rb
index a937afbb2..900436eb8 100644
--- a/lib/diaspora/markdownify.rb
+++ b/lib/diaspora/markdownify.rb
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ module Diaspora
       include ActionView::Helpers::TagHelper
 
       def autolink(link, type)
-        auto_link(link, :link => :urls )
+        auto_link(link, :link => :urls, :html => { :target => "_blank" })
       end
     end
   end
diff --git a/spec/lib/diaspora/markdownify_spec.rb b/spec/lib/diaspora/markdownify_spec.rb
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..41e6b28a2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/spec/lib/diaspora/markdownify_spec.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+require 'spec_helper'
+
+describe Diaspora::Markdownify::HTML do
+  describe '#autolink' do
+    before do
+      @html = Diaspora::Markdownify::HTML.new
+    end
+
+    it 'should make all of the links open in a new tab' do
+      markdownified = @html.autolink("http://joindiaspora.com", nil)
+      doc = Nokogiri.parse(markdownified)
+
+      link = doc.css("a")
+
+      link.attr("target").value.should == "_blank"
+    end
+  end
+end
\ No newline at end of file