I think this is a sensible approach. That said, it is an absurd (and depressing) state of affairs when people are riled up by the idea of the word “safe”, as you suggest.
There is never going to be a 100% safe space for a user; no such thing exists. Similarly, there’s never going to be a method by which IFDB moderators or curators can provide that safe space. However, if we’re talking about default experience (as we were earlier, who knows if we’ve shifted away from that point now), I think the onus is on the mods/curators to make the default page as safe as possible, to cover as many bases as possible.