Every time someone calls out "griefing", a cute adorable kitten is killed.
I think "griefing" is a term that really needs redefining. If you make in in-game action that affects other situations, be they player or environment for the intent of in-game play, it's fine. If you are trying to change systems or affect other players for external reasons, for instance, you don't like how Robigo makes
players rich, that's griefing
. Your reasons are not motivated externally, not internally.
Don't get me wrong, I think Robigo is fun but it's rewards are just too high imo. High gain, high risk (in theory, though I was never caught when I did a few runs). I'd rather Robigo et al didn't exist with such fast easy rewards as I think it does imbalance the game and player growth, personally speaking.
But ultimately, if you're making actions based on external politics, that will affect other people's gaming experience, that's grief. You can dress it up and say "well my character dispises the slave trade" which is fine, but ultimately you know you're dressing up a political mandate with a game excuse.
So as much as I hate to say it, yes, if people are targeting systems for external politics (they don't like or believe that players should be using a run to exploit large cash windfalls), I think that is pretty much griefing as that's not based around any in game reason. If you've happened to decide to affect an area for your own in-game benefit, as the mod suggested earlier, how one player's choices are always detrimental to another, that's fine. Like I said, it's an easy line to distinguish in theory, but only the players themselves know whether they're being called out for an in-game business plan they are doing as part of the Elite universe, or just to irritate players who they feel shouldn't be playing the game as they are.
I don't think FDev can really impose any "policy" on this. Proving grief to in-game choices is difficult, and as soon as you do so on specific runs, the game itself becomes political in protecting specific gamers over others and their routes.
Ultimately this is a time I think is best to suck it up and try to make cash elsewhere, perhaps.