No, it is not OK to call an UART as RS-232, because they are two completely different things, located at different layer on OSI model for networking. RS-232 would be the physical layer, and UART would be the data link layer.
Which means, UART can be used with other physical layers too, such as RS-485, RS-422, etc.
Some people mix RS-232 physical layer with UART, because technically all RS-232 ports were implemented with UARTs, and when you just want the UART many chips are still called 232 like FT232 because it is a USB UART which can be used to implement an RS-232 port.
Both those modules are just 3.3V TTL/CMOS level UART modules. They have nothing to do with RS-232. Or rather, they can be thought as typical computer RS-232 serial ports but with the RS-232 part left off, which is what might explain why they are called incorrectly.
RS-232 is a standard for physical electrical interface. It defines things like voltage levels and connector.
What it does not define is the logical bit serial protocol, line code, or encoding.
Those are defined by the UART. The UART uses logic level voltages, and these logic level voltages are converted to RS-232 voltage levels with a level conversion PHY when making an RS-232 interface. But in your case, you do not need RS-232 and need only the logic level UART signaling.
