diff --git a/wp-includes/category-template.php b/wp-includes/category-template.php
index 69fc14d631..6ff21789f8 100644
--- a/wp-includes/category-template.php
+++ b/wp-includes/category-template.php
@@ -415,7 +415,6 @@ function wp_generate_tag_cloud( $tags, $args = '' ) {
 	foreach ( $counts as $tag => $count ) {
 		$tag_id = $tag_ids[$tag];
 		$tag_link = clean_url($tag_links[$tag]);
-		$tag = str_replace(' ', ' ', wp_specialchars( $tag ));
 		$a[] = "<a href='$tag_link' class='tag-link-$tag_id' title='" . attribute_escape( sprintf( __ngettext('%d topic','%d topics',$count), $count ) ) . "'$rel style='font-size: " .
 			( $smallest + ( ( $count - $min_count ) * $font_step ) )
 			. "$unit;'>$tag</a>";