A group of Chinese-speaking pro-democracy activists sued search giant Baidu, demanding $16 million in damages for allegedly excluding their publications from search results. Their argument was simple: Baidu is infringing upon civil liberties with its censorship practices.

In a landmark decision, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman dismissed the activists' lawsuit on Thursday, arguing that Baidu has a free-speech right to censor anything it wants, and to show whatever search results it chooses.

Sound ironic? Even the judge knows the issue could be perceived that way — but he disagrees.

"There is no irony in holding that Baidu’s alleged decision to disfavor speech concerning democracy is itself protected by the democratic ideal of free speech," Furman wrote in his decision.

At the heart of Furman's opinion is the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protection for freedom of speech, which precludes any government interference in the ability to express one's views. Basing his decision on literature authored by respected Internet law experts and previous Supreme Court decisions, the judge concluded that Baidu — as well as other search engines — exercises "editorial judgment" in showing search results, and is therefore free to exercise that judgment however it wants — including by censoring pro-democracy articles.

In other words, Baidu is no different than a newspaper choosing what stories to publish. And for some First Amendment experts, that's a sound argument.

"For better or for worse, as a search engine, you are in fact engaged in meaningful communication," Stuart Benjamin, a law professor at Duke University and author of Algorithms and Speech, told Mashable. And that communication is covered by the First amendment, he added.

When it comes to free-speech protection, there's essentially no difference between Reddit — or even Google — and Baidu, Benjamin said. They all make decisions — some aided by algorithms — on what information they show to an Internet user. And if you make that kind of decision, the U.S. Constitution protects you from any government interference.

His view is shared by Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment expert who wrote a Google-commissioned paper on search engines and free speech in 2012.

"A search engine is basically a source of opinion on what the search engine operators think is useful," Volokh told Mashable. "The very reason we turn to Google rather than picking a random websites ... is that we value Google's judgment about what to include and what to exclude."

To understand how a search engine is similar to a newspaper, we have to turn the clock back to 1972, when Google was not yet around. That's when Pat Tornillo, a candidate for the Florida House of Representatives, sued the Miami Herald for its refusal to print his reply to an article criticizing his candidacy.

Tornillo based his claim on a Florida law that granted anyone a right of reply, which means any person could force a newspaper to publish his or her response to a critical article. The paper responded by claiming the Florida law was unconstitutional, as it violated its freedom-of-speech rights.

Two years later, the Supreme Court unanimously sided with the Miami Herald, ruling the law infringed on the paper's right to exercise "editorial control and judgment," which not only included expressing some opinions, but also withholding others.

Today, not everyone is thrilled with Furman's decision.

Frank Pasquale, a law professor at the University of Maryland who has written a paper on the issue, doesn't think search engines should be treated like newspapers. For one, the former has much more power than the latter: Baidu controls roughly 78% of the search-engine market in China, and 67% of Americans use Google.

Pasquale references another famous Supreme Court case dating back to 1994, and involves cable operators. It involved "must-carry regulations," which forced cable operators to include local broadcast-television stations in its offerings.

The Supreme Court ruled that although cable operators are engaged in some form of speech, given that they are "conduit[s] for the speech of others," and can shut out other speakers with their stranglehold on the market, they don't deserve the same level of First Amendment protection as the Miami Herald received.

Pasquale thinks a similar argument should be made for search engines. The goal is to prevent them from using the First Amendment to circumvent any kind of regulation, and justify decisions that might be seen as censorship, he said.

To illustrate his point, Pasquale points to a case that actually doesn't involve a search engine, but another tech giant.

Last year, Apple removed from its App Store an iPad game called Sweatshop HD in which gamers abused employees as the manager of a factory. Citing Apple's questionable labor practices in China, critics slammed the company, with some accusing it of censorship.

"I think that the law should be able to force them to put that game in there, and they shouldn't be able to say on a First Amendment ground 'Oh no, we get to censor all images of people suffering in our factories on our platform,'" Pasquale told Mashable.

However, it's harder to apply that argument to search engines. Google or Baidu cannot remove a website from the Internet, though they can make it impossible for their users to find. But other search engines are just one click away, and switching is "free, and can be done instantly," Volokh said.

Since the pro-democracy activists never argued that Baidu is a neutral platform to deliver content, Furman refrained from commenting on whether search engines are comparable to cable operators or newspapers in terms of free-speech protection.

There have been two other cases involving a search engine (Google) in which a judge ruled on free speech; in both cases, judges ruled that search engines have free-speech rights. But the decision on Baidu, according to all experts consulted by Mashable, has the potential to be more influential because it does a better job at arguing why they have that protection.

The Chinese-speaking pro-democracy activists' lawyer told Reuters that they will appeal the decision. The issue may one day end up in the Supreme Court, but for now, search engines have free-speech rights just like anyone else.

Read the judge's full opinion, below:

Opinion in Baidu Censorship Lawsuit