If anyone's curious, modern "virtual" pinballs, which are just a computer under a large screen inside a pinball frame, replicate this by using an accelerometer (like the one in our phones).

The pinball emulation software is fed tilt metrics, and usually that software decides when to call it fault.

And if anyone is really curious you can read in detail here: http://mjrnet.org/pinscape/BuildGuideV2/BuildGuide.php?sid=tilt