to be fair, the verge is a sensationalist piece of shit. Here's an article that identifies the specific technical fault:
Our Starlink team last exchanged an email with the Aeolus operations team on August 28, when the probability of collision was only in the 2.2e-5 range (or 1 in 50k), well below the 1e-4 (or 1 in 10k) industry standard threshold and 75 times lower than the final estimate. At that point, both SpaceX and ESA determined a maneuver was not necessary. Then, the US Air Force's updates showed the probability increased to 1.69e-3 (or more than 1 in 10k) but a bug in our on-call paging system prevented the Starlink operator from seeing the follow on correspondence on this probability increase—SpaceX is still investigating the issue and will implement corrective actions. However, had the Starlink operator seen the correspondence, we would have coordinated with ESA to determine the best approach with their continuing with their maneuver or our performing a maneuver.
The early articles kept saying stuff like "spacex refuses to move satellite", making it appear like willful refusal. That aint what happened. For lack of a better term, it was a software error. Hard to believe someone didnt pick up a phone though and say "hey, our shit might crash into your shit, check your email"