Visual overflow and screen reader disruption caused by Zalgo text (stacked Unicode diacritics)

[devdavidejesus]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

UI/UX

Body

Description

I have identified that the GitHub interface does not properly contain vertical overflow for characters with excessive stacked diacritics (commonly known as "Zalgo Text"). This allows text to "leak" outside of its original container, overlapping other posts and UI elements.

Impact on Accessibility

This issue creates several barriers:

• Visual Pollution: For users with low vision or cognitive disabilities, the overlapping text makes the interface unreadable and confusing.
• Screen Readers: These long strings of combining marks can cause screen readers to stutter or read out nonsense, severely hindering navigation.
• UI Integrity: It breaks the visual hierarchy of the timeline, impacting the overall user experience.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create or view a post/reply containing text with multiple Unicode combining marks (U+0300–U+036F).
2. Observe how the text extends vertically beyond its line, overlapping elements above or below it.

Suggested Mitigation

• Implement CSS overflow: hidden or line-clamp on post containers to prevent vertical leakage.
• Consider sanitizing inputs to limit the maximum number of consecutive combining diacritics allowed per character.

[github-actions[bot]]

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[queenofcorgis]

@devdavidejesus thanks for reporting this! I've forwarded it over to our team. Do you have any links to pages where you see this happening and have you seen this on pages outside of profiles?

We'll share this with the team to help them in their investigation! Thanks again 😃

[devdavidejesus]

Thank you for the prompt response and for sharing this with the team.

Here is an example where I’ve noticed the issue:
https://github.com/ishandutta2007

I’ve also been seeing this on X, but haven’t received any response there yet.

Don’t trust, verify. ₿