Schadenfreude
Overview
Schadenfreude is the feeling of pleasure at seeing someone else's misfortune, failure, or pain. The word combines the German Schaden (harm) and Freude (joy), and English speakers use it as is too.
It may sound immoral, but schadenfreude is a natural human emotion. This feeling can get stronger when the person who fails is a rival or someone you felt was above you. You could call it the flip side of envy.
Question boxes and schadenfreude
Questions driven by schadenfreude sometimes arrive in a question box, such as when the person answering has failed at something, faced backlash, or lost followers. "You've been losing followers lately. How do you feel about that?" "Any comment on the backlash?" Behind questions like these, there may be a hidden motive of checking on someone's trouble to get a kick out of it.
Anonymity is part of the background that lets schadenfreude come out. Under a real name, not wanting to be seen as "someone who enjoys other people's misfortune" acts as a brake, but in a question with no name on it, that brake tends to weaken.
Handling schadenfreude questions
One way to handle questions driven by schadenfreude is to go against what the sender expects. They may be asking because they want to see you shaken or hurt. Stay calm and matter-of-fact, and state only the facts. The point of not showing an emotional reaction is to deny them the pleasure of schadenfreude.
Another option is to skip the question altogether. Answering a schadenfreude question at all may send the signal that "it's getting to you." Which way you handle it depends on the situation, but the one thing you should avoid is reacting emotionally.