diff --git a/zerver/lib/markdown/__init__.py b/zerver/lib/markdown/__init__.py
index f23532bd4c..74962206f8 100644
--- a/zerver/lib/markdown/__init__.py
+++ b/zerver/lib/markdown/__init__.py
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 # Zulip's main Markdown implementation.  See docs/subsystems/markdown.md for
 # detailed documentation on our Markdown syntax.
-import cgi
 import html
 import logging
 import mimetypes
@@ -10,6 +9,7 @@ from collections import deque
 from collections.abc import Callable
 from dataclasses import dataclass
 from datetime import datetime, timezone
+from email.message import EmailMessage
 from functools import lru_cache
 from re import Match, Pattern
 from typing import Any, Generic, Optional, TypeAlias, TypedDict, TypeVar, cast
@@ -441,7 +441,9 @@ def fetch_open_graph_image(url: str) -> dict[str, Any] | None:
             if res.status_code != requests.codes.ok:
                 return None
 
-            mimetype, options = cgi.parse_header(res.headers["Content-Type"])
+            m = EmailMessage()
+            m["Content-Type"] = res.headers.get("Content-Type")
+            mimetype = m.get_content_type()
             if mimetype not in ("text/html", "application/xhtml+xml"):
                 return None
             html = mimetype == "text/html"
diff --git a/zerver/lib/url_preview/parsers/base.py b/zerver/lib/url_preview/parsers/base.py
index 921349f3d7..09541de9a2 100644
--- a/zerver/lib/url_preview/parsers/base.py
+++ b/zerver/lib/url_preview/parsers/base.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-import cgi
+from email.message import EmailMessage
 
 from zerver.lib.url_preview.types import UrlEmbedData
 
@@ -10,9 +10,9 @@ class BaseParser:
         # importing it adds 10s of milliseconds to manage.py startup.
         from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
 
-        charset = None
-        if content_type is not None:
-            charset = cgi.parse_header(content_type)[1].get("charset")
+        m = EmailMessage()
+        m["Content-Type"] = content_type
+        charset = m.get_content_charset()
         self._soup = BeautifulSoup(html_source, "lxml", from_encoding=charset)
 
     def extract_data(self) -> UrlEmbedData: