So it's an absolute moonshot that posits that all observed discrepencies of galactic rotation curves is actually due to a coincidental and highly unlikely distribution of topological defects (that are not consistent with the full field equations) that have not been observed, and also fail to explain every other feature of dark matter at various different scales. nice.

Its fine for a paper but doesn't really make sense as an article unless you are more interested in ad revenue from titles like "we don't need mass for gravity" than the ideas being presented. These science article websites live solely off of people who aren't equipped with the prerequisite background to actually critically parse the ideas that are being presented.

This is probably the reason why everyone ~online~ (and not in departments) loved string theory two decades ago, and virulently hates it today, and also think that dark matter "is just a bunch of BS from the physics establishment" and that things like MOND or this are even remote competitors to the general consensus (which is basically just - we have no idea but we probably just need an extension to the standard model / quantum gravity at somepoint in the far future).