President Barack Obama reads out mean tweets about himself

It's a segment usually reserved for celebrities on US late-night show Jimmy Kimmel Live, but on Thursday night President Barack Obama was given the honours to publicly read out mean tweets about himself.

Host Jimmy Kimmel introduced the popular segment as the "all president Obama edition of Mean Tweets", where criticism is "the nature of the job".

Accompanied by slow music, President Obama showed off his sense of humour by reading the cruelty of the internet aloud.

The crowd was in hysterics at the president's sometimes crestfallen reaction to the messages and his snide replies.

The Mean Tweets skit has seen countless celebrities step up to the plate to see what Twitter really thinks of them, with President Obama the highest ranking politician to submit yet.

Recently, Lisa Wilkinson, Sam Frost, Sarah Harris and Tracey Spicer led an all-female list of stars who banded together to read mean tweets about themselves.