BEIJING -- Yahoo Inc., under fire from civil-rights groups for its indirect role in human rights abuses in China, is answering critics by setting up a fund to give victims of government censorship legal and other assistance.

The webco has been charged with complicity in the jailing and torture of Chinese dissidents, and this week was criticized because Yahoo China, in which Yahoo Inc. has a stake, ran a wanted list of rioters involved in violent protests in Lhasa, Tibet.