diff --git a/src/Network/HTTPClient/Client/HttpClientAccept.php b/src/Network/HTTPClient/Client/HttpClientAccept.php
index 11c317acb4..c229f5b0a9 100644
--- a/src/Network/HTTPClient/Client/HttpClientAccept.php
+++ b/src/Network/HTTPClient/Client/HttpClientAccept.php
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ class HttpClientAccept
 	public const IMAGE     = 'image/webp,image/png,image/jpeg,image/gif,image/*;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8'; // @todo add image/avif once our minimal supported PHP version is 8.1.0
 	public const JRD_JSON  = 'application/jrd+json,application/json;q=0.9';
 	public const JSON      = 'application/json,*/*;q=0.9';
-	public const JSON_AS   = 'application/activity+json, application/ld+json; profile="https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams"';
+	public const JSON_AS   = 'application/activity+json, application/ld+json; profile="https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",application/json;q=0.9';
 	public const MAGIC     = 'application/magic-envelope+xml';
 	public const MAGIC_KEY = 'application/magic-public-key';
 	public const RSS_XML   = 'application/rss+xml,text/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8';
diff --git a/src/Protocol/ActivityPub/Processor.php b/src/Protocol/ActivityPub/Processor.php
index c8a5ae4d5d..6b01089d86 100644
--- a/src/Protocol/ActivityPub/Processor.php
+++ b/src/Protocol/ActivityPub/Processor.php
@@ -1611,15 +1611,15 @@ class Processor
 
 		if (empty($object) || !is_array($object)) {
 			Logger::notice('Invalid JSON data', ['url' => $url, 'content-type' => $curlResult->getContentType()]);
-			return '';
+			return null;
 		}
 
 		if (!self::isValidObject($object, $url)) {
-			return '';
+			return null;
 		}
 
 		if (!HTTPSignature::isValidContentType($curlResult->getContentType(), $url)) {
-			return '';
+			return null;
 		}
 
 		$ldobject = JsonLD::compact($object);