@Yankee So if you're of a certain age (read: a child), there are certain options that you can't change in User Experience (obvious ones being Nudity Censor set to On and Clothing Damage set to Off). There's an auto-suicide function that can be accessed at will, to avoid situations like forcible confinement. One can also 'share' memories, which in turn means that the veracity of allegations regarding PvP gone wrong can be proven very easily. This, of course, applies only to players doing shitty stuff to players.
For atrocities committed against the NPC populace, it basically works like this. You have citizenship to your nation, but if you commit crimes against your nation's people, you can lose it (via the nation's goverment and legal system deeming you a criminal). If you commit crimes against another nation's people, you can be preemptively blacklisted by them, making it impossible (beyond certain circumstances like paying shit tons of money) to apply for citizenship to that other nation. Sometimes, if the crime is bad enough, politics can come into play and you'll be disavowed by your own nation even if you did nothing bad to your own nation, because they want to avoid going to war.
When all nations disavow/blacklist you, the next time you die, you will respawn on a prison island, and will be confined there for an amount of days equal to the weight of your crimes. No NPCs, no Anomalies. You can still 'play', but you don't get loot, events, waifus, etc.
Essentially, the meta of conduct is this: don't be a creep to other players, because news spreads fast. Don't be a dick to the NPC population, or you'll increase the chances of getting tossed onto the island. There is no retribution or moderation in terms of the system booting you out, but there's systems in place in-game to punish evil-doers. Consequences of choices, essentially.
Of course, if you were just
good at being a criminal, that's fine and acceptable. So long as you can outrun the law, everything's fineeeee. As a matter of fact, killing NPCs nets you more EXP than you would get from mob monsters... ;3