Avoid domain penality?

Hello there, noob-ish here. Hope yall having a great day

Does anyone can help me answer the following questions?
What is a domain penality?
How can you get one?
How does this affect your website, and whos giving the penalities?

Thanks for yall time
Cheers.

https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/confessions-of-a-penalised-domain.814061/

You can get most of the info in the above link.