diff --git a/frontend_tests/node_tests/composebox_typeahead.js b/frontend_tests/node_tests/composebox_typeahead.js
index 5145bea8f1..ba020fbb72 100644
--- a/frontend_tests/node_tests/composebox_typeahead.js
+++ b/frontend_tests/node_tests/composebox_typeahead.js
@@ -832,7 +832,7 @@ test("initialize", ({override, mock_template}) => {
         // Adds a `no break-space` at the end. This should fail
         // if there wasn't any logic replacing `no break-space`
         // with normal space.
-        query = "cordelia, lear's" + String.fromCharCode(160);
+        query = "cordelia, lear's\u00A0";
         assert.equal(matcher(query, cordelia), true);
         assert.equal(matcher(query, othello), false);
 
diff --git a/frontend_tests/node_tests/hotkey.js b/frontend_tests/node_tests/hotkey.js
index 531356e638..df11c444be 100644
--- a/frontend_tests/node_tests/hotkey.js
+++ b/frontend_tests/node_tests/hotkey.js
@@ -215,7 +215,7 @@ run_test("mappings", () => {
 
 function process(s) {
     const e = {
-        which: s.charCodeAt(0),
+        which: s.codePointAt(0),
     };
     try {
         return hotkey.process_keypress(e);
diff --git a/static/js/emoji_picker.js b/static/js/emoji_picker.js
index 9185d45bae..0662ec0c07 100644
--- a/static/js/emoji_picker.js
+++ b/static/js/emoji_picker.js
@@ -540,7 +540,7 @@ function process_keypress(e) {
             new_query = old_query.slice(0, -1);
         } else {
             // Handles any printable character.
-            const key_str = String.fromCharCode(e.which);
+            const key_str = String.fromCodePoint(e.which);
             new_query = old_query + key_str;
         }
 
diff --git a/static/js/pill_typeahead.js b/static/js/pill_typeahead.js
index 3ba994fac1..2c34b83f28 100644
--- a/static/js/pill_typeahead.js
+++ b/static/js/pill_typeahead.js
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ export function set_up(input, pills, opts) {
         },
         matcher(item) {
             let query = this.query.toLowerCase();
-            query = query.replace(/\u00A0/g, String.fromCharCode(32));
+            query = query.replace(/\u00A0/g, " ");
 
             if (include_streams(query)) {
                 query = query.trim().slice(1);
diff --git a/static/js/rtl.js b/static/js/rtl.js
index f83a8322d5..0ceadedf90 100644
--- a/static/js/rtl.js
+++ b/static/js/rtl.js
@@ -109,27 +109,8 @@ function get_bidi_class(ch) {
  */
 export function get_direction(str) {
     let isolations = 0;
-    for (let i = 0; i < str.length; i += 1) {
-        // Extracting high and low surrogates and putting them together.
-        // See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-16#Description or section 3 of https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2781.
-        let ch = str.charCodeAt(i);
-        if (ch >= 0xd800 && ch < 0xdc00) {
-            // 0xd800 <= ch < 0xdc00
-            // ch is inside high surrogate range.
-            // If it made a surrogate pair with the next character, put them together.
-            // Otherwise, ignore the encoding error and leave it as it is.
-            const ch2 = i + 1 < str.length ? str.charCodeAt(i + 1) : 0;
-            if (ch2 >= 0xdc00 && ch2 < 0xe000) {
-                // 0xdc00 <= ch2 < 0xe000
-                // ch = ch & 0x3ff;
-                ch -= 0xd800;
-                // ch = 0x10000 | (ch << 10) | (ch2 & 0x3ff);
-                ch = 0x10000 + ch * 0x400 + (ch2 - 0xdc00);
-                i += 1;
-            }
-        }
-
-        const bidi_class = get_bidi_class(ch);
+    for (const ch of str) {
+        const bidi_class = get_bidi_class(ch.codePointAt(0));
         switch (bidi_class) {
             case "I":
                 // LRI, RLI, FSI
diff --git a/static/shared/js/typeahead.js b/static/shared/js/typeahead.js
index d151fc1ed3..6ab730c4ab 100644
--- a/static/shared/js/typeahead.js
+++ b/static/shared/js/typeahead.js
@@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ function clean_query(query) {
     // contenteditable widget such as the composebox PM section, the
     // space at the end was a `no break-space (U+00A0)` instead of
     // `space (U+0020)`, which lead to no matches in those cases.
-    query = query.replace(/\u00A0/g, String.fromCharCode(32));
+    query = query.replace(/\u00A0/g, " ");
 
     return query;
 }