["python","string"]
How do I get rid of the b-prefix in a string in python?

I have a string with a b-prefix: b'I posted a new photo to Facebook' I gather the b indicates it is a byte string. How do I remove this b prefix? I tried: b'I posted a new photo to Facebook'.encode("utf-8").decode("utf-8") But this gives an error: UnicodeEncodeError: 'charmap' codec can't encode characters in position 64-65: character maps to <undefined>
decode the bytes to produce a str: b = b'1234' print(b.decode('utf-8')) # '1234'