diff --git a/include/api.php b/include/api.php
index 543c018279..a7d25c83f0 100644
--- a/include/api.php
+++ b/include/api.php
@@ -614,7 +614,7 @@ function api_get_user(App $a, $contact_id = null)
 				'name' => $contact["name"],
 				'screen_name' => (($contact['nick']) ? $contact['nick'] : $contact['name']),
 				'location' => ($contact["location"] != "") ? $contact["location"] : ContactSelector::networkToName($contact['network'], $contact['url']),
-				'description' => HTML::toPlaintext(BBCode::toPlaintext($contact["about"])),
+				'description' => BBCode::toPlaintext($contact["about"]),
 				'profile_image_url' => $contact["micro"],
 				'profile_image_url_https' => $contact["micro"],
 				'profile_image_url_profile_size' => $contact["thumb"],
@@ -693,7 +693,7 @@ function api_get_user(App $a, $contact_id = null)
 		'name' => (($uinfo[0]['name']) ? $uinfo[0]['name'] : $uinfo[0]['nick']),
 		'screen_name' => (($uinfo[0]['nick']) ? $uinfo[0]['nick'] : $uinfo[0]['name']),
 		'location' => $location,
-		'description' => HTML::toPlaintext(BBCode::toPlaintext($description)),
+		'description' => BBCode::toPlaintext($description),
 		'profile_image_url' => $uinfo[0]['micro'],
 		'profile_image_url_https' => $uinfo[0]['micro'],
 		'profile_image_url_profile_size' => $uinfo[0]["thumb"],
diff --git a/src/Content/Text/BBCode.php b/src/Content/Text/BBCode.php
index b2d4ebb5d7..b012e79fb2 100644
--- a/src/Content/Text/BBCode.php
+++ b/src/Content/Text/BBCode.php
@@ -357,10 +357,7 @@ class BBCode extends BaseObject
 	 */
 	public static function toPlaintext($text, $keep_urls = true)
 	{
-		$naked_text = preg_replace('/\[.+?\]/','', $text);
-		if (!$keep_urls) {
-			$naked_text = preg_replace('#https?\://[^\s<]+[^\s\.\)]#i', '', $naked_text);
-		}
+		$naked_text = HTML::toPlaintext(BBCode::convert($text, false, 0, true), 0, !$keep_urls);
 
 		return $naked_text;
 	}