Never Hire List: Legal and Ethical in Indonesia?

Header illustration: scales weighing the right to choose against fairness

Employers have a real right to choose whom they hire. That right survives scrutiny. What does not automatically survive is a permanent never-hire list with vague criteria, no right of reply and no way back. This is an analysis of rhetoric and a map of Indonesian law, not a verdict on anyone.

RAHMAT WIBOWO | 23 OCTOBER 2026

The short answer

Choosing whom to hire is every employer's right. What fails the test is not that right but the way a permanent never-hire list is built, defended and announced: vague criteria, evidence nobody else can check, a judge who is also the person who felt criticised, and no road back.

The material behind this piece is a bundle of 26 screenshots of public posts by Ibrahim Arief ("Ibam") on X, written between October 2023 and January 2025, in which he discussed his own "never-hire list". I tested 13 claims in those posts with the same five questions each, then looked at the list through ethics and Indonesian law. I write as three people at once: someone who wants judgments about people made slowly, a startup founder who knows the temptation to protect a team and the price of a wrong hiring decision in either direction, and someone who reads the actual articles of the law instead of what merely sounds right.

The employer-rights argument that survives

Before criticising, a good advocate builds the strongest version of the other side. Several of these arguments I hold myself, and they stand as principles:

Nobody has a right to be hired by one specific company. Employers are free to choose, and freedom of contract is a basic principle of the law of agreements.
Character is part of qualification. A 30 to 60 minute interview cannot fully assess it, so employers check references and backgrounds. In the screenshots he mentions character references, background checks, anonymised 360-degree peer reviews and whistleblowing (E06). That is ordinary practice.
Refusing to share the list is a strength. He declined to circulate it because other people have a right to earn a living elsewhere (E23), and because of legal risk (E01). This keeps a private list from becoming a shared blacklist, and I count it in his favour.
Symmetry is accepted. He agreed that others may keep a "no-apply list" (E11), and said that managing a difficult employee is management's responsibility (E12).

All of these hold. The question is how the list is applied.

Where the argument stops being fair

Of the 13 claims, 1 survived, 7 survived in part and 5 failed. The recurring problems were these:

"Personal" used with two meanings. As a private judgment, the list is personal. Announced publicly with 387 thousand views and a reference to an identifiable person (E01, E08), it is not private in the same sense.
Judge and affected party are the same person. In August 2024 the basis for judging character was comments aimed at the list's owner (E09, E10). The Latin maxim: nemo iudex in causa sua.
From one comment pattern to "toxic coworker". Passive-aggressive comments on social media became a verdict about workplace behaviour (E09, E10), and a word like "toxic" cannot be proven wrong.
Burden shifting. "Tell me how that is not fair and reasonable?" (E10) puts the burden of proof on the person with less bargaining power.

Four ethical yardsticks

Law answers what is allowed. Ethics answers what is fitting. Four measures help:

Proportionality. A list marked "never" is permanent, so two incidents of different weight can end in the same outcome. A commenter asked the most human question in the whole bundle: what if the person has repented (E07)? On the captures available, the list's owner did not answer. A list with no expiry has no answer to that question.
Audi alteram partem (hear the other side). A person on the list does not know they are there, does not know why and has no chance to reply. The owner himself said some cases never became public (E01), so some decisions cannot be checked.
Nemo iudex in causa sua. Where the basis is criticism aimed at the list's owner, assessment should go to a second person.
Bargaining power and the mirror. An executive with hundreds of thousands of views speaks from a different position than an applicant. And he himself wrote that how we judge others is how we judge ourselves (E24): would I accept being judged this way?

The Indonesian legal points

One warning comes first. There is no evidence in the bundle that the list was ever used to reject an applicant. This section therefore maps the relevant provisions and tests their elements. It does not conclude that any violation occurred, and it is not legal advice. Consult a practising advocate for a real case.

Personal data protection (Law 27/2022, the PDP Law)

A list holding names and reasons for rejection is data about identifiable individuals. The PDP Law excludes processing by an individual for personal or household activity (Article 2 paragraph 2). My reading is that a list used to screen applicants for an organisation, with rejection context shared with hiring managers (E02), is a professional activity and tends to fall outside that exception. No court has tested this reading, so it is interpretation, not certainty.

If the list is inside the regime, processing needs a legal basis, and "other legitimate interests" requires balancing against the rights of the person listed (Article 20 paragraph 2 letter f). Data must be accurate, complete and up to date (Article 16 paragraph 2), and the person has rights to information, correction, access, deletion and damages (Articles 5 to 8 and 12).

Disclosure, and data the owner published himself

An identifiable reference (E01, E08) raises a disclosure question under Articles 65 paragraph 2 and 67 paragraph 2 of the PDP Law (up to four years in prison for unlawfully disclosing personal data that is not one's own). One fact weighs on the other side: the event referred to was announced by the person himself (E08). My view is that quoting what the owner published, as it was and in the same context, is low risk, while storing it in a list used to reject recruits is a different purpose. I do not conclude that a violation occurred; that test would only follow a complaint and an examination by the authorities.

Defamation (Law 1/2023, the new Criminal Code)

Article 433 paragraph 1 requires attacking someone's honour by alleging a specific act, intending it to become public. "I don't need people like him on my team" is a preference, not an allegation of an act. The abbreviation "SH" in E01 points to an act, but its content is not visible and I do not assess it. The offence is complaint-based (Article 440), with exemptions for public interest and self-defence (Article 433 paragraph 3). Because the posts date from 2023 and 2024, Article 3 paragraph 1 decides which rule applies if a case is examined later.

Employment discrimination and the presumption of innocence

Article 5 of Law 13/2003 guarantees equal opportunity without discrimination. According to secondary sources, the elucidation of Article 6 lists sex, ethnicity, race, religion, skin colour and political stream. Law 39/1999 Article 1 point 3 includes political belief in its definition of discrimination.

He said the criterion is attitude, never opinion (E23). As long as the criterion genuinely measures work-related behaviour, it sits outside the prohibition. The problem arises if "attitude" becomes a substitute for political opinion. Two things in the evidence make that line worth guarding: the August 2024 exchange started from a politically tinged debate (E09), and "attitude" is undefined. There is no evidence that the line was crossed, and none that it was guarded in writing.

The presumption of innocence is a principle of criminal procedure aimed at the state. The new Criminal Procedure Code (Law 20/2025), for example, forbids investigators from creating a presumption of guilt when naming suspects (Article 91). It is not written as an obligation for private employers. But he used it himself as an ethical yardstick in January 2025, so the ethical question stands whether or not law demands it.

Fiduciary duty

Directors must act in good faith and with responsibility (Law 40/2007 Article 97). The business judgment rule in paragraph 5 protects business decisions taken in good faith, with care, without conflict of interest and with preventive steps. It assesses the process of the decision. That is why a written, reviewable process protects a leader, while a list with no process weakens that protection. It also means "fiduciary duty" does not by itself make a never-hire list mandatory.

A list that can be defended

If you lead a team, the need to keep it healthy is real. Five steps make a rejection list lawful, fitting and useful:

Written criteria. Three to five observable, work-related behaviours such as harassment, fraud, breach of confidentiality or sabotage. Avoid unmeasurable words like "toxic" or "noisy".
Recorded evidence. Note the source, date and who assessed. If the assessor was a party to the matter, ask a second person.
Right of reply. Hear the person before deciding, unless there is a written security reason.
Proportion and expiry. Set a review date, for example every two years, and avoid the word "never".
Review and a way back. Provide a route for people who change, and an answer to "what if they have repented?"

I could defend a list built this way before a judge, before my team and in front of the mirror. A list built on one comment pattern, judged by the person who felt criticised, with no right of reply and no expiry, is hard to defend in any of the three.

Read the full analysis

The full evidence-by-evidence analysis, with all 13 claims, the reply-column review and the seven families of logical flaw, is in the complete Never Hire List logical flaws analysis. For the separate campaign that followed, see the Kawal Ibam fallacy audit.

Limits and right of reply

This is an analysis of arguments, not of people. All quotations come from public posts captured as screenshots, which have not been compared against the originals on the platform. Some content is not visible, including the "SH" case, which I do not assess. I do not judge anyone's intent, and I do not say anyone lied, acted maliciously or is guilty. The presumption of innocence applies to every party.

I disclose an interest: I am connected to two of the pieces of evidence (E01 and E08), through the reference to "that guy who got fired from AWS". To stay fair I quoted each claim exactly, presented the strongest argument of the criticised side first, and said where a claim survived. The dismissal referred to is not at issue here.

Ibrahim Arief and anyone quoted may send corrections to admin@infraloka.co.id. Corrections that are shown to be correct will be published in the next version.