WASHINGTON (AFP) - Twitter is boosting safeguards to prevent its network being used for harassment and abuse, it said on Tuesday.

The online messaging service said it was improving its process for reporting such behaviour so as to make it more mobile friendly and require less initial information.

Twitter said the changes will make it easier to flag tweets and accounts for review. Behind-the-scenes improvements would also "enable faster response times" for such reviews, Twitter's director for user safety, Shreyas Doshi, wrote on a blog.

The updates will be accessible to all users in coming weeks.