U+200C · inspector action: review
Zero Width Non-Joiner (U+200C)
U+200C ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER is an invisible character that prevents two letters from connecting. It has real linguistic jobs in cursive scripts, and it is invisible in every context — which makes it just as useful for hiding information or faking lookalike names.
How it is abused
- Lookalike account names: inserting U+200C into a username or brand name produces something that renders identically but is a different string.
- Moderation evasion: forbidden words can be split invisibly so filters that do not normalize joiners never match them.
- Hidden identifiers: like other zero-width characters, U+200C can watermark leaked text or smuggle tags through copy & paste.
Legitimate uses
U+200C is a required letter-form control in Persian, Urdu, Kurdish and several Indic orthographies, and it appears in some text-shaping edge cases. If the text is from those languages, finding it is expected — inspect the context instead of assuming tampering.
Detect it locally
The AIPwn AI Detector inspects pasted text for this mark and its siblings entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded. The inspector reports the code point, count, and position, and treats this mark as an observation to review, not an automatic verdict.