diff --git a/killstream/kill_stream.py b/killstream/kill_stream.py
index 36111d2..e927bc6 100644
--- a/killstream/kill_stream.py
+++ b/killstream/kill_stream.py
@@ -243,7 +243,7 @@ def terminate_long_pause(session_id, message, limit, interval, notify=None):
 
 
 def arg_decoding(arg):
-    return arg.decode(TAUTULLI_ENCODING)
+    return arg.decode(TAUTULLI_ENCODING).encode('UTF-8')
 
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":