You might be right in the second paragraph about the motivations for slowing this down. There clearly are reasons to be cautious here though, even if this isn't the real reason for the current caution.
Why should only the few have access to such a technology? Because some people will use it for naughty things? And that's what we are talking about here, about whether a minority should have permissioned access to a new technology, and particularly one that cannot directly actually cause physical harm. I can glean motivations surrounding all this from that observation alone.
Side note: if you're a materialist, you should believe that psychological harm is physical harm. It's obvious that being able to publish images of someone doing things they themselves find reprehensible could cause lots of trauma.
My point was that if there's only matter, then mental / psychological harm must be in some sense physical harm.
(FWIW I lean not-materialist myself, but it's a common perspective around here so I thought it was worth pointing out)
Your point about photography is also comparing apples and oranges. There are fundamental differences here down to scale and accessibility of techniques that means anyone will soon be able to deep fake anything instantly.
Fwiw, do I think this technology should be controlled by big tech? No way. Do I think this is Pandaora's box? Yes. If we don't reconcile the tricky tradeoffs between radical democratisation of this technology on the one hand vs heavy handed control on the other, we are in hot water. Tldr... it's complicated and it is not zero sum.