The distinction that has been made here is that “NSFW” only means "pornography

Who has made this distinction? NSFW in my opinion is anything that is, you know, is not safe for work.

That would include pretty much any explicit content. Extreme gore for example would be another type of content which isn’t really safe for work.

Probably also images of self harm.

However, alor of content on Lemmy doesn’t fall in to the above criteria, so it is ‘safe’ for work. Just like how light magazines are appropriate for work, but a porn mag isn’t.