Alpine Linux is actually a great example of why you are right. Because when people say Linux to describe the OS, they almost always mean GNU/Linux (Linux Mint, Arch Linux, etc). But then there is Alpine, which also calls itself Linux, but its developers actually mean something very different, because it’s not GNU/Linux. So that only makes things even more confusing. Android doesn’t even use the mainline Linux kernel, so calling it Linux is probably even worse than with Alpine.
If we always used the correct names, there wouldn’t be so much confusion.
Alpine Linux is actually a great example of why you are right. Because when people say Linux to describe the OS, they almost always mean GNU/Linux (Linux Mint, Arch Linux, etc). But then there is Alpine, which also calls itself Linux, but its developers actually mean something very different, because it’s not GNU/Linux. So that only makes things even more confusing. Android doesn’t even use the mainline Linux kernel, so calling it Linux is probably even worse than with Alpine.
If we always used the correct names, there wouldn’t be so much confusion.